How to Hide Your Social Media Profiles From Bullies
Hiding your social media profiles
Social networking can be a wonderful thing, but it can also a breeding ground for bullies. It’s one of the many reasons to hide your social media profiles.
If you’re dealing with social media bullying and/or harassment, or just want to hide your social media profiles for another reason, we’re here to help.
In this article, we’ll show you how to make your Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts private. We’ll also reveal how people can find hidden profiles on social networks.
How to Make Your Twitter Account Private
By default, your Twitter account and tweets are public for anyone to see. That visibility includes people who aren’t signed into Twitter.
To change this, open Twitter on a web browser. On the left navigation, click More > Settings and privacy. On the main pane, click Privacy and safety.
Beneath the Tweets section, click Protect your Tweets. A confirmation box will pop up, so click Protect. Your tweets, past, and future, will now only be visible to those who follow you. Anyone who tries to follow you from this point forward will need to be approved by you.
While on the Privacy and safety page, for the ultimate security, go to Location information and Photo tagging in turn to disable them. Ensure that Receive messages from anyone is off.
With your tweets protected, your followers won’t be able to retweet your tweets. Your tweets won’t appear on search engines and will only be searchable on Twitter by your followers.
However, while this setting makes your tweets private, it doesn’t hide your entire profile. Depending on what you have populated on your profile, everyone will still see your:
- Banner image
- Profile image
- Name
- Username
- Bio
- Location
- Website
- Birthdate (if you are under 18, this is always hidden)
- Twitter registration date
- Number of people you follow (but not who they are)
- Number of people who follow you (but not who they are)
Go to your profile and click Edit Profile to customize the visibility or the information contained within most of these elements.
How to Make Your Instagram Account Private
Anyone can see your Instagram profile and posts unless you set your account to private. A private account means that you have to approve followers before they can see your posts.
To set your account private on Android or iOS:
- Go to your Instagram profile and tap the menu icon (three horizontal lines)
- Tap Settings
- Tap Privacy > Account Privacy
- Slide Private account on
Your posts won’t appear in search or on hashtag pages. Bear in mind that if you like or comment on someone else’s post then your username will still be listed.
If someone isn’t following you on Instagram, on your profile they will see:
- Profile image
- Name
- Username
- Bio
- Number of people you follow (but not who they are)
- Number of people who follow you (but not who they are)
How to Make Your Facebook Account Private
Unlike Twitter and Instagram, Facebook doesn’t have a handy catch-all switch for making your profile private.
Your profile can always be found in search, except from people you’ve blocked.
To begin, load Facebook in your browser and click the dropdown arrow and then click Settings. Next, click Privacy from the left-hand navigation.
From this page, you can customize the visibility of profile elements. The most secure option will be Only me, though this isn’t available for everything. For example, Who can send you friend requests? can only be set to Everyone or Friends of friends.
You should also check out the Timeline and tagging and Stories pages for some more privacy options.
How to Block Someone on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
You now know how to hide your social media profiles, but you can also block a specific account if someone is causing you grief. However, bear in mind that this doesn’t stop them from finding you as they could sign out or use another account.
Nevertheless, blocking is a quick, easy way to stop someone from seeing your profile. It also means you won’t have to see their profile either.
To block someone:
- On Twitter and Instagram, go to the person’s profile, click the More icon (three vertical dots), click Block, then Block again to confirm.
- On Facebook, go to Settings > Blocking. Enter the name of the user you want to block in the Block users field, then click Block.
