Secret Groups on Facebook

Once you have a profile on Facebook, you can create groups intended for select individuals, and devoted to specific topics. Anyone with a Facebook account can create a group, just click on the menu arrow at the top of your Facebook page, and select "Create Group" from the drop-down menu. You choose a name for your group, add some initial members, and most importantly for our purposes "Select Privacy" for your group. Here you should select a "Secret Group". 

Secret Groups on Facebook can only be seen by their current and former members. To become a member of a Facebook Secret Group you have to be added or invited by a current member of that group. The differences between the privacy settings on Facebook Public, Closed, and Secret Groups can be seen here, in the Facebook Help Center.

Secret Groups don’t appear in searches, so if the group members don’t advertise its existence the group should remain "secret". Facebook Secret Groups can be very large, having thousands of members, but where they are most effective is among a small group of people sharing a common interest. A Facebook Secret Group could even be used as a private communication channel for just two people.

Just how secret is a Facebook Secret Group? Well, its not visible to people outside of the group, but Facebook administrators can no doubt see the content of a Secret Group, and as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) pointed out "No matter what type of group you choose and what settings you take advantage of, there is a hard limit on how private Facebook groups can be. If the company receives a government request to turn over user information or take down content, your group may be vulnerable. In some cases, if Facebook's copyright bot flags content in your group for potential copyright infringement, rights holders may be allowed to see it. And if users report content inside your group - even Secret groups - as violating Facebook’s Community Standards, it can be taken down. Users can even be temporarily banned from the platform for such violations." 

So, Facebook Secret Groups are perhaps not really all that secret, but they do add a layer of privacy not available in Public or Closed groups; and they are much more private then simply posting to your Facebook personal profile. Every layer of privacy and security that you add to your life makes you that much harder of a target. So if you have something to share with a group of like-minded people, but you want to avoid the public eye, consider a Facebook Secret Group.