Virtually everyone is on Instagram. For the moment it is still the social network of the moment, despite the attacks of TikTok, thanks to which we can follow public figures that we like, brands, websites (such as El Output, Ahem) and, of course, friends. However, you may not want to be as exposed as all those public accounts. Today we are going to give you some basic tips on how to protect better your curious account as well as block to those users that you do not want to see your publications.
There was a time when privacy mattered
If we look back, for example, to the 80s, it would seem like a scandal to any citizen of our country that someone go to the mailbox at home, reach inside and pull out some letters to see what they say about us: both those friends and relatives who wrote to us from their vacation destination to the companies with which we had some economic deal. Now, with mobile phones and our entire lives digitized, it seems that this is something normal when we should not consider it that way.
Instagram, like practically all social networks, bases its business model on know who we are, what we like and motivate and what our life is, purchasing power, educational level, etc. Without that information that we give you, you could not display personalized advertising and, therefore, sell our profile to brands interested in us.
In any case, hiding from Instagram is complicated, although there are ways to block much of the information we generate from ending up on their servers. Even if we made it There is another threat that is latent when we use the social network: that someone wants to know too much about us without knowing exactly what their intentions are. Are we his platonic love? Are you a fan of everything we do and publish? Or can we expect something worse? Just in case we are going to build certain privacy walls to prevent them from being jumped.
Say goodbye to stalkers on Instagram
Although Facebook and Twitter are widely used (and TikTok continues to push hard), we can say that Instagram is still the audiovisual content social network by excellence. Many are those who have an account on the platform and if not, at least they know of its existence.
If you are one of those who have a user account on this social network and would like to be something less exposed to the prying eyes of others, today we are going to give you some tips to limit what and to whom you show your posts on Instagram. How to do it is tremendously simple and with just a couple of clicks you will have it solved. All these functionalities are completely independent, so you don't have to do them all, you can only apply the one that best suits your needs. Go for it.
How to better protect your Instagram account and content
Within the settings of your Instagram account there are different configurations that allow you to limit the access of certain users with your profile. From defining who can and who can not send you private messages or comments, hide your stories, block specific profiles and many others that we now explain what they consist of.
How to make your Instagram account private
A basic. If what you want is to completely shield anyone who tries to see your photos and videos, your thing is to put your private account. Obviously, this will mean that your photos will not appear in Instagram's suggested content feed (or in searches by location or hashtags, even if you use them) and that anyone who enters your profile will require your approval to be able to see the photos or videos that you have posted as well as your “Stories”.
To set your private account, follow the steps below:
- Open the Instagram app on your mobile and go to your profile, tapping on your photo, in the lower right corner.
- Click on the icon of the three lines in the upper right corner and within the menu, tap on “Settings”.
- In the options menu that appears, choose "Privacy" and within it, at the top, you will see the option "Account Privacy«.
- Right in this section is where you will have access to make your account private. You just have to press the side slider to complete the process.
You should take into account some implications that having your private account entails. For example, yes you mention someone else who is not one of your approved followers to view their photos or videos, the mentioned person will not receive a notification in the "You" section of the Activity section (the heart icon) and will also not receive a push notification. Likewise, if you leave a comment on a photo posted by a public Instagram user, that comment will be visible and clickable on your username.
Finally, if you send a photo or video to a group of people with I, only people who follow your private profile (and therefore have your approval) will be able to see the comments or mentions associated with that photo or video.
How to prevent everyone from seeing all your Stories
To prevent the whole world from seeing everything you upload to Stories, you can make a selection of contacts, so you have more control over what people see. This is especially useful (and makes more sense) if you have a public account, but you want to reserve some content (for example the images of your children) to a smaller group of people.
At the time we explained how the «Best friends» (or «Close friends»), so we quickly summarize the steps to follow to configure it:
- Enter the Instagram app, go to your profile (in your photo, in the lower right corner), and once inside, tap on the three stripes icon, in the upper right corner.
- Now enter the "Account" section and here click on "Best friends«.
- Click on the "Suggestions" tab and choose those people nearby who will be able to see your most special content.
- Once the list is made (which you can modify whenever you want), tap on "Done".
- When you go to upload a Stories, remember to click on “Best friends”.
On the other hand, going back to the privacy menu, here you also have the option to limit who sees your stories (as long as your account is not private, in which case only your friends will see them). Here you will be able to perform different actions ranging from
- Hide Stories from certain users in particular.
- Manage your best friends as we saw before.
- Choose who can reply to your posts.
How to block a person on Instagram
Do you want to have your account open but what certain concrete people don't see your content? There is also a way to preserve your privacy in that sense - although this will not prevent that person from being able to use another person's account or phone to stalk you, remember.
To do this, the steps are very simple:
- Once inside Instagram, look for the profile of the person you want to block and enter it.
- Click on the three dots icon in the upper right corner.
- Tap on «Block«. Here you will also see the option to hide your stories from this user or even the option to restrict account. This means that, without the need to block or unfollow, you stop seeing the content that said user generates publicly.
- A notice will appear asking if you want to block said user -and letting you know that the other person will be notified of the blocking. Press "Block" again. Ready.
If you want to check your blocked list, you can always enter the "Settings" of your profile and in "Privacy & Security» tap on the option «Accounts locked«. From there you can enter their profiles and unlock them if at any time you change your mind. All yours.
How to manage in which photos you are tagged and appear
Surely on more than one occasion you have been tagged in a photo and you didn't want to. This is another way in which you are inevitably exposed to others and also often without being able to control it.
Luckily there are options for to restrict For this to happen, you can choose not to have the photos in which you are tagged automatically added to your profile through the app options or only allow tags by certain contacts.
These are the steps to follow to control it:
- Go to your profile and tap on the three lines in the upper right corner.
- Go to “Settings”.
- Find “Privacy” and select it.
- Go to "Tags".
- you can decide if you want give permission for anyone to tag you in a post, for only people you follow to do so, or for no one to have that privilege.
- The other option is the manual label approval. Tap on this option and you can activate this function so that from then on you always have control of the situation.
- If you also want to take a look at the photos in which you appear (and edit the ones you don't like, hiding the image or directly deleting it), you can do so below in the same panel, in “Tagged posts”.
control comments
Another of the measures that you can take to avoid unwanted interaction with certain users is to control who can and who cannot leave a comment on everything you upload on the social network. It is a firewall that you always have at hand to limit the number of responses that are added to your photos. In this way, you avoid disappointment in the event that a publication goes viral where trolls usually end up writing that you neither know nor care what they think.
To do this, you have to do the following:
- Go to your profile tab.
- Click on the three vertical dots and select the Comments option.
- Now, in the "Allow comments from" section, select which contacts we limit those interactions to.
- As always, to perfectly hone in on those people you do let write to you, remember to carefully select who you follow or what groups you create.
Beyond privacy
Undoubtedly, all of the above will help you keep away all those social network accounts with which you do not want to maintain daily contact, but, without a doubt, the best way to prevent our profile from falling into the wrong hands is protecting it with the tools that Instagram puts in our hands.
And the most important of all is the one that adds extra security beyond the simple username and password, for preventing anyone from stealing your access credentials and doing stupid things on your behalf while we realize that our account has been hacked. So don't forget to do the following.
Activate XNUMX-Step Verification
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Apart from all of the above, the best way you have to protect your account and prevent it from being stolen is adding an extra layer of security, which is often known as two step verification, that is, that in addition to entering our username and password to the log in We require the social network to ask us every time for an extra, unique code that is impossible for nobody can know unless it is done physically with our smartphone.
In case of receiving activation, we can receive that code through three different ways:
- WhatsApp: A code will appear in one of the chats of the messaging application, when you enter your mobile number in Instagram.
- Authentication app: Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator or Authy are options that allow you to generate a new code every few seconds that we can check on our mobile screen.
- SMS (text0 message): If you don't trust any of the above, the best way to receive that code is through a short text message, which is one-time use and prevents hackers from knowing what it is.
To configure it, you must touch on the menu of the three horizontal lines, Settings > Security > Two-factor authentication.