Facebook – Can I Post Publicly but Hide the Status from Friends?

My understanding of the "Hide this post" functionality is that it will hide that post and all future comments, like etc on that particular post.

If another friend posted the same picture again you would have to hide that post too. Facebook isn't intelligent enough to recognise, what are essentially, duplicate posts.

As of 10/11/13:

1. Click on your name in top right corner
2. Click “Friends” at the top
   
3. Click the pencil image to “Manage”
   
4. Click “Edit Privacy”
   
5. Modify “Friend List” section by selecting from the drop down menu
   

If you have timeline (which I assume you have):

1. Go to your profile
2. Click on your friends list
   
3. Click on Edit
   
4. In the popup, click on the icon from the right—in this case the globe, but you might have a different icon, like friends
   
5. Select Only me (or whatever other option you want)
   

Is this what you are looking for?

1. Go to your profile and click Edit in the top right corner
2. From the menu in the left column, click Friends and Relationships
3. Go to the Friends section and use the audience selector on the right side to control who can see your friends