Social media overall has provided us with more ways than ever to stay connected with family, friends and colleagues; as well as introducing us to exciting new individuals from multiple countries, cultures and languages. Its growth has been an incredible phenomenon and continues on daily.
The convenience of social media and the internet can have its downsides. One concern is that personal information shared on social media, such as who you follow on Instagram, can be accessed by malicious third parties. In this article, we will explore the possibility of hiding who you follow on Instagram.
Can You Hide Who You Follow or Who Follows You on Instagram
There are many reasons why you may want to hide your list of followers or the list of people you are following. Perhaps you don’t want your friends to know which influencers are your guilty pleasure. Maybe you have a jealous partner who stalks your following list and then asks you why you are following a certain person. Or maybe you are just concerned about your privacy.
There is no dedicated feature that allows you to hide who you follow on Instagram. However, there are certain workarounds that you may use to achieve a similar result.
Whatever your reason is, the sad truth of the matter is that there is no dedicated feature that allows you to hide your list of followers or following. However, there are certain workarounds that you may use to achieve a similar result. This will depend on the type of account you have as well as to what extent you want to prevent someone from accessing the list of your followers and following.
How to Hide Your Followers and Following List on a Public or Business Instagram Account?
Before you follow any of the suggestions mentioned in this article, it is important to ascertain what kind of account you have. Instagram allows users to have mainly 2 kinds of accounts.
The first kind is a public account. A public account can be accessed by anyone and is visible to everyone, regardless of whether they are following the account or not. While anyone can have a public account, it is mainly used by people who create content on Instagram and want to share it as well as businesses who want to advertise their brand and products.
A public account can be turned into a business account by users who want to access advanced tools on Instagram that allows them to see statistics of their page.
Public or Business accounts on Instagram can hide who they follow by either turning their account private or by blocking users who they want to hide their followers and following list from.
Also Read: How Many Photos Can You Post on Instagram?
If you have a public or business account on Instagram and want to hide the list of who you follow and who follows you from other people, you can go about it in the following ways:
Make Your Instagram Account Private
If you are not running a business and don’t want your account to be accessible by people until you allow it, you can turn your Instagram account private. Doing so will result in your account being fully visible to the followers you approve. Do note that your current followers will remain unaffected and they will be able to see who you follow as well as who follows you.
If you want a specific follower to not be able to access your list of followers and following, you will have to remove them from your followers list after turning your account private.
You can make your account private by following these steps:
Tap on the menu icon and go to Instagram’s Settings
Tap on Privacy
Toggle the Private Account Setting
Confirm that you want to turn your account private by clicking on Switch to Private.
Block the User
If you do not want to turn your account private, you will not be able to hide who you follow as well as who follows you from people online. However, if it is a specific user that you want to hide your followers and following list from, then you can block the user. Doing so will prevent them from interacting with you on Instagram. They will not be able to see anything on your account, including who you follow.
Do keep in mind that if your account is public, they could just use another account or ask one of their friends to check and see who you follow and this approach is just a minor inconvenience for someone who is dedicated to finding out who you follow.
You can block a user by following the below mentioned steps:
Click on Block
You can either block the account or block any other account that Instagram knows that this user has. While it may not be foolproof, we recommend the latter, as it ensures that they won’t be able to look at your profile by making another account.
How to hide your followers and following list on a private Instagram account?
The second type of account that Instagram allows you to have is a private account. The only way to access the contents of such an account is to send a follow request and have the account owner accept it. The followers and following list of a private account is only visible to the followers of the private account.
Private accounts on Instagram can hide who they follow by removing the person from their followers who they want to hide their followers and following list from.
While you cannot hide who you follow from your followers, if you want to stop a specific person from accessing it, you can do so by removing them from your followers.
Removing From Your Followers
If you want a specific follower from being unable to access your followers and following list, you can remove them from your followers list. Doing so will result in them being unable to interact with your account as well as hide your followers and following list until you allow them to follow your account again.
To remove someone from your followers, follow these steps:
Click on “Followers” from your profile page
Find the follower that you want to remove. You can scroll to find them or you can use the search box to look them up. Once you find them, click on remove.
Confirm that you want to remove them by clicking on “Remove” again.
Restricting Your Followers
Blocking or removing someone from your followers can be a bit extreme and might result in unwanted confrontations. In that case, you may want to consider Restricting them instead.
Restricting a follower allows you to control their comments on your post and stops read receipts on your chat with them.
Instagram allows you to Restrict users. While this will not hide your followers and following list, it will limit their interaction with your account. When you restrict a user, there are two main things that happen.
Firstly, their comments on your posts are only visible to the both of you. You will have the option to either allow it to be shown to everyone, or to delete it. We advise against using the delete option as this will let them know that their comment was deleted. Instead, leave the comment as is. It will be shown only to you and the person who made the comment.
Secondly, their chat will be moved to the Message Requests section. This means that they will not be able to see any read receipts on your messages until you accept their message request.
You can restrict a user by following the steps given below:
Open the profile of the user and then click on the three dots in the top right.
Click on Restrict
Confirm your action by clicking on “Restrict Account”
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, while there is no dedicated feature on Instagram that allows users to hide who they follow or who follows them, there are workarounds that can be used to achieve a similar result. Users with public or business accounts can make their account private or block specific users they want to hide their followers and following list from. However, it is important to note that this approach is not foolproof as determined individuals may still find ways to access the information.
Private Account Owners can remove users from their followers list, which will allow them to hide their followers list from those users.
Ultimately, it is up to the individual user to weigh the pros and cons of hiding their followers and following list and to decide on the best approach for their specific situation.
