Oh dear.
A lot of quite intelligent people are now getting very confused with the new Facebook features. It seems the ideas involved are getting confused and muddled.
Two specific features need to be examined:

1. Subscriptions
2. Timeline

Both have difficulties but both have some advantages. I won’t go into details here except to say this.
Subscriptions control (since September 2011) how you see other’s posts in your view of Facebook. It does not control anything related to how others see Facebook. Essentially if you unselect “comments and likes” from an individual you (and only you) won’t see those items from that person.
Timeline is a profile viewer. It relates solely to how a Facebook user’s Profile is visible. It does not affect anything to do with subscriptions or visibility, only showing that persons personal activity! The exception is that it is much easier to see older items, that may have more open privacy settings.

Viral Scampi

This is my term for items that seem legit and could be true but re really just troublesome nonsense.

With the new ‘FB timeline’ on its way this week for EVERYONE…please do both of us a favor: Hover over my name above. In a few seconds you’ll see a box that says “Subscribed.” Hover over that, then go to “Comments and Likes” and unclick it. That will stop my posts and yours to me from showing up on the side bar for everyone to see, but MOST IMPORTANTLY it LIMITS HACKERS from invading our profiles. If you re-post this I will do the same for you. You’ll know I’ve acknowledged you because if you tell me that you’ve done it I’ll ‘like’ it

Firstly, subscriptions are nothing to do with Timeline.
Secondly, it doesn’t stop posts, just comments and likes. Would make Facebook a bit pointless if you couldn’t see any posts. Why be ‘friends’ at all?
Sidebar is specific to you. If you have liked or commented on an item you get to see follow up likes and comments, regardless of whether you are friends with that individual (who posts the subsequent comment/like). But that is specific to you and your activity.
Hackers. This is the bit that really gives this away. If you want to stop absolutely hackers on Facebook then leave. Simple as that. As these suggestions only affect what you see, not others, it cannot affect visibility to hackers. What you can do for yourself is make sure you have all the your Privacy settings are up to scratch, protecting your data.
Oh, and please, don’t ask for re-posts. Viral alert! Viral alert!

Important Notes:

1. One thing you need to note is that if you like or comment on a friends post or like then all their friends get to see your comment or like, whether you are friends with them or not.
2. You can now set the default publicity of your posts in the settings. Very useful if like me you use third party apps to post a lot (blog, IMdB, Flixster, Twitter etc.). However, the web portal (which those on PCs, Mac, etc. use) remembers the last used privacy option. So if you change the publicity for a particular post, then the next time you post you have to remember to set it back.