Q&A: Blocking Game Invites on Facebook

Q.

I have a Facebook friend who constantly spams me with invitations for games. Can I discreetly block all these invites?

A.

Facebook includes tools to let you ignore invitations from friends asking to join them in apps and games. If you missed the “Ignore All Invites From This Friend” link on the latest invitation, you can set up a block before the next invite arrives.

Just click the account menu on the top right side of your Facebook page and choose Privacy Settings. On the Privacy Settings page, scroll down to the “Blocked People and Apps” section and click on Manage Blocking. In the “Block app invites” area, enter the user name or the e-mail address of the friend who keeps sending you the invitations; that person will not get a notification that you have blocked the invites.

Putting a 13-Year-Old Child Safely on Facebook

Teens see joining Facebook as a passage into adulthood. Parents see it a little differently.

An e-mail in my inbox Monday morning from my editor had a scary subject line: “Help!”

When I opened the message, I read this: “My daughter is 13-years-old today and so, as promised, I let her sign up for Facebook. YIKES. Now I am freaking out over her privacy settings!”

Even for an adult, Facebook's privacy settings are as daunting as trying to do your taxes with an abacus. For teenagers, unaware of the consequences of their online actions, using Facebook incorrectly could potentially leave a digital trail that might follow them a ll the way through high school, college and into the real world. What's more, there are also creepy people out there on social networks.

Here's what I told my editor.

First, you should sit down with children and explain that anything - stress the word anything â€"they post can and will be used against them on the Internet. This includes private messages and photos they believe are visible only to friends and comments they leave on people's pictures or status updates. Although all of these things can be set to private, a friend-turned-enemy could take a screenshot of something your teenager has shared, then send it around school for all to jeer at.

screenshots via FacebookMake sure your child's pictures are visible only to their friends.

Teenagers should assume that there is no such thing as private on Facebook. The company has repeatedly changed settings that were once private, to public, and there is nothing to say Facebook will not do this again. Even so, you will want to go through your child's Facebook settings to make them as private as possible.

To begin, click on the arrow in the top right and then scroll down to Privacy Settings. Once inside, the first thing you will want to do is ensure that anything your child posts on Facebook is only visible to Friends, not the Public.

Once you have done this, methodically go through every setting - be aware, there are dozens of them - and change your child's account to only be visible to Friends.

I would recommend leaving the “Who can send you friend requests?” tab open to Everyone for the first week or so. Like a child's first few days in school, let him corral friends on the social network, then you can go back into this option and chan ge it to only allow Friends of Friends later.

To prevent an excerpt from your child's Facebook page from showing up in public search engines, including Google and Bing, be sure to go to the Apps tab in the privacy settings and click on “Public search.” Then make sure you disable “Enable public search.”

One of the most important privacy settings is how personal information is used in ads. This is where Facebook uses you, or your likes, in advertisements on the Web site. For example, if you like Coca-Cola, Facebook will show your friends ads for Coke using your name as part of the advertisement. (A bit creepy, I know.)

You will want to change your child's ads settings to “No One.”

To change this, click on the Facebook Ads tab. Then click on the two links that say “Edit third party ad settings” and “Edit social ads setting” and change these options to “No one.”

When I talked to my editor later in the day, she mentioned that her child had logged into the new Facebook account on a friend's iPhone that day. This, you should stress, is a very bad idea. If your child forgets to log out, the person can now see everything on their Facebook page, including private chats and messages.

Just like teaching a teenager how to park a car until they get it right, I would recommend sitting over a child's shoulder and watching them log in and then log out of his or her Facebook account in a way that doesn't save the password.

You can see other tips from Facebook on the site's Teen Safety Area.

Oh, and one last thing: Friend your teenager on Facebook.

Senate Leaders Take to Floor Over Process Dispute

So much for holiday cheer. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, and his Republican counterpart, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, had a legislative throwdown on the Senate floor Monday afternoon over the future of the filibuster, a sore issue for both parties.

Mr. Reid has said that at the beginning of the next Congress, he will attempt to diminish the power of Republicans to slow or stop legislation by putting limits on the filibuster.

Mr. McConnell, so frosted by proposed rules changes that he called “a mortal threat” to “one of the most cherished safeguards of our government,” took his umbrage to the floor Monday, warning of a “naked power grab” that would eventually “poison party relations even more,” he said.

Senate Republicans have refused to let scores of bills go forward in recent years, often because Mr. Reid will not allow the party to put amendments on those bills. This practice i s deplored by the minority in both chambers, but only in the Senate can bills be stopped through the minority protest. Mr. Reid would like to limit what procedural motions are subject to filibusters, and to force senators to return to the practice of standing around forever, reading the phone book or what have you, if they choose to filibuster a bill before its final passage.

“If a bare majority can proceed to any bill it chooses,” said Mr. McConnell, deeply angry, “and once on that bill the majority leader all by himself can shut out all the amendments that aren't to his liking, then those who elected us to advocate for their views will have lost their voices in this legislative process.”

Mr. Reid countered that the filibuster was “not part of the Constitution.”

“It's something we developed here to help get legislation passed,” he said. “Now it's being used to stop legislation from passing.”

Should be an interesting rest of the year.

Susan Rice to Discuss Benghazi With Republican Critics in Senate

After weeks under fire, Susan E. Rice will face her accusers on Tuesday.

Ms. Rice, the president's ambassador to the United Nations and a front-runner to be the next secretary of state, will meet with Senator John McCain of Arizona and two other Republican senators who have excoriated her, saying she provided a misleading account of the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

Ms. Rice asked for the meeting, according to a government official. Mr. McCain seemed to soften his opposition to her potential nomination on “Fox News Sunday” and said “she deserves the ability and the opportunity to explain herself.” Also attending the meeting will be Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, officials said. Ms. Rice will be accompanied by Michael J. Morell, the acting C.I.A. director.

The White House welcomed Mr. McCain's shift in tone during a briefing Monday before news of the meeting was disclosed. “ I certainly saw those comments and appreciate them,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary. “As the president has said, and I and others have said, Ambassador Rice has done an excellent job at the United Nations and is highly qualified for any number of positions in the foreign policy arena.”

Ms. Rice told a series of Sunday talk shows in the week after the Benghazi attack that it stemmed from a spontaneous protest that extremists then exploited, rather than being a premeditated terrorist attack. That characterization proved inaccurate, and Republicans seized on her interviews as evidence of an attempted cover-up by the administration. The White House has defended Ms. Rice by saying she was simply articulating talking points produced by intelligence agencies.

Mr. Obama has not said whom he will nominate to replace outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, but Ms. Rice was seen as the favorite until the Be nghazi episode. Mr. Obama's sharp and aggressive defense of her at a postelection news conference led many in Washington to think he may yet go ahead with her nomination and dare Republicans to oppose her. Another top candidate, according to White House officials, is Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Foreign Relations Committee chairman and a former presidential candidate.

The Early Word: Give and Take

Today's Times

• Some liberal lawmakers are resisting significant changes to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, but many Republicans say President Obama will have to acquiesce if he wants to strike a deal with Congress, Robert Pear reports.

• With the retirement of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in January, Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina will lose a colleague who has contributed to the veneer of bipartisanship that helped advance their foreign policy goals for more than a decade, Jennifer Steinhauer writes.

• A special primary election to replace Jesse L. Jackson Jr., who resigned his House seat last week, will be held in February in Illinois, and the line to succeed him is forming fast, Steven Yaccino and Monica Davey report.

 Around the Web

• Politico wants to know how that whole “super PAC” thing is working out.

• Former Presid ent Jimmy Carter is in Haiti building houses in a town still devastated by the 2010 earthquake, The Associated Press reports.

 Happenings in Washington

• Enrique Peña Nieto, president-elect of Mexico, will meet with President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the White House. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will attend as well.