Instagram offers a number of privacy features. Users can enable those to get better control over their accounts and restrict unwanted people from interacting with them. There are features to hide comments and likes. The app can even automatically hide “potentially offensive” comments on the app. You also get to control who can tag and mention you on this social media platform. Users can also hide their activity status on the app. Here’s a look at five features that you can enable right now to make your account more private.
Instagram: 5 privacy features you can enable right now
Restricted accounts
Instagram has a feature called “Restricted Accounts” in Settings. As the name suggests, it allows you to restrict any person without having to block or unfollow that individual. The company says it won’t notify that friend when you restrict their account.
Enabling this feature would mean that the individual won’t be able to see when you’re online or if you’ve read their messages. You will be able to review the comments of the accounts you select. When you restrict an account, Instagram will give an option to decide whether you want everyone to see comments from the restricted account. You will find the “Restricted accounts” in the Settings > Privacy section.
Mentions
In the privacy section, there is a “Mentions” option, which you can turn off if you don’t want anyone on the Instagram app to mention you to their Stories, comments, live videos, and captions. For this, you can choose the “People you follow” feature. This way only people you like will be able to mention you.
Remove followers
Instagram says if your account is set to private, you will then see an option to remove contacts from your follower list on this social media platform. If you don’t want to block any follower, then you can simply remove it.
Just open the app and tap at the bottom of your profile picture to visit your profile. After which, you need to tap on “Followers,” which you will see at the top of the screen. If you want to remove the followers, you can simply tap on the “remove” button.
Instagram won’t notify followers when you remove them.
Activity status
On Instagram, the people you follow or interact with directly can see when you are active or were last online on the app. You can change that by turning off the status of your activity. You can simply go to settings, tap on Privacy and then tap again on Account Status to disable it.
Hide likes, turn off comments
Instagram lets you turn off comments and hide likes after you post anything on this social media app. You just need to tap on the three-dotted button, which is located on a post’s top right corner. You then get a menu, where you will see the options to hide likes and comments.