Learn this complete guide to secure your privacy and control your online presence on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and X.
Sometimes, even on social media, you don’t feel like being there or with the family members and friends you truly like. Maybe you don’t want your parents keeping tabs on your activities, or you’d rather not have an old-school friend track you down to reconnect. Maybe you just want an online space separate from your offline life.
For these feelings or any other reason, you can make your social media profile less discoverable than it would normally be. Major social media platforms provide you with control over who can search for you and who cannot. This way, the chances of your uncle or neighbour finding out about you are minimized. Here are some tips to make yourself less discoverable on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms.
By improving Public Privacy Settings, you can secure your social media presence and restrict your profiles to specific people. Using these options, you can completely separate your online presence from your offline world, ensuring the safety of your personal information and activities.
General tips for any social media Platforms
Generally, there are some rules you can follow on any social media platform, though you must, of course, operate within the platform’s policies regarding user identity verification. Firstly, provide as little accurate personal information as possible when signing up. For instance, you might want to use an alternative name and set something other than your photo as your profile picture.
In social media platforms, connections are often suggested based on phone contacts, so it’s best to avoid providing your phone number. You will almost certainly need to provide an email address, but you can use a secondary email that no one else has or take advantage of available services like Apple’s “Hide My Email.“
When signing up, reject any requests to search for connections or contacts, and do not allow the platform to scan your phone’s contact list. If you need to choose a handle, avoid using your real name or anything that could reveal your identity. Additionally, most networks won’t stop you from creating another account if you wish. If you already have a main account, you can create an extra one with different personal details to use privately.
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How to stay hidden on Instagram
If you don’t want anyone else to see your posts, you can private your Instagram account until you approve their connection request. You can select this option during account setup or later by going to the profile tab in the app, tapping the menu button(three lines, Top right), then selecting Account Privacy and choosing Private Account to make the change.
On the same screen, there’s an Allow Profile Picture Expansion toggle switch—turn it off so that others can’t view your profile picture. Returning to the main menu, you can select Tags and Mentions to control who can tag and mention you on the platform and when. You can completely disable it, limit it to only those you follow, or, if you prefer, enable Manual Tag Review.
There’s another option, but it’s unavailable in the mobile apps; you’ll need to visit Instagram web to find it. Click on your profile, then go to Edit Profile, and you’ll find a toggle switch labelled “Show Account Suggestions on Profiles.” Turn it off, and your profile will no longer be suggested on other accounts, nor will you be suggested on anyone else’s profile.
How to stay hidden on X (Twitter)
Twitter has now been renamed X, and Elon Musk has taken over its management, but many settings are still the same as before. Like Instagram, you can make your profile private. This setting can either be done during setup or by going to the app, tapping on your profile picture(top left), then navigating to Settings and Support> Settings and Privacy>Privacy and Safety> Audience and Tagging >Protect your posts.
You can also select Discoverability and Contacts from the Privacy and Safety menu. On the next screen, you can disable three key features: allowing others to search for you using your email address, searching for your phone number, and syncing your phone contacts with X to suggest connections. If you disable all these, it will become much harder for others to find you.
It’s also a good idea to go to Direct Messages from Privacy and Safety and adjust all the settings according to your preferences. The X platform gives you significant control over who can send you messages and who can call you, and if needed, you can completely disable these features. This is another precaution that reduces the chances of someone you don’t want to communicate with contacting you.
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How to stay hidden on Facebook
The privacy settings on your Facebook profile aren’t as good as those on Instagram and X. However, you still have some options. From the mobile app, tap the menu button(three lines), then choose settings and privacy>Settings>How people can find and contact you to adjust your Facebook privacy settings. There are many options here to control what is visible on your profile, who can send you messages, whether you appear in searches, and additional privacy controls.
People with your email address and phone number can see who knows you if you use the “People with Your Email Address” and “People With Your Phone Number” options. Here, you can control who can see you as a suggested friend—whether it’s no one or just friends of your contacts. Another option, “Who Can Send You Friend Requests,” allows you to limit friend requests to those who want to connect with you.
In addition to this complete page, you can have detailed control over what’s visible on your profile so people can find you but not see your photo or your friends. Tap on the Profile Details and Posts from the settings screen so that the information you’re sharing doesn’t appear to those who aren’t already your friends.