The key is whether a given post on your timeline is tagged with the names of other Facebook friends. In that case, yes — even after using the “limit the audience” tool, a tagged post will be visible to the friends of anyone tagged in the post, including people who aren’t your direct FB friends. That’s different from the “friends of friends” setting, however, in which a post would be visible to all your friends plus ALL of their FB friends, no matter who is (or isn’t) tagged. Yeah, pretty confusing…

Do you have any idea whether it would change privacy settings from “friends” to “friends of friends”? I have noticed, for example, that in the past the “friends” privacy setting meant only your own friends could see something, and not friends of people tagged in that post/photo. However, Facebook seems to have changed this and if you select “friends” today it will mean it is visible to your own friends AND friends of people marked in the post. You need to specifically go to “custom” to turn this off and make it visible to just your own friends.

Good question. Here’s what Facebook’s help center has to say: 

“If you use this tool, content on your timeline you’ve shared with friends of friends or Public will change to Friends. Remember: people who are tagged and their friends may see those posts as well.”

So it sounds like the “Limit the Audience” tool only applies to posts shared publicly or with “friends of friends,” and not to posts with more restrictive privacy settings (like to just a few friends, or “Only Me”). That said, I haven’t tested this for myself yet. Once I do, I’ll report back.

If so then wouldn’t that mean that albums or posts which were restricted to only a handful of people would become MORE visible? Or do those tighter restrictions you’ve made in the past stay true? I’m surprised the answer to this isn’t obvious in the literature on Facebooks own pages.