This Is How To Hide Your Profile On Facebook, Increasing User Privacy

Facebook user profiles can be hidden. (photo: doc. unplash)

JAKARTA - Facebook allows users to limit who can search for them using their email address or phone number on the social media platform. Users can also prevent their Facebook profile from being indexed by Google and other search engines to prevent random people from accessing their information through online searches.

While privacy has always been a significant area of concern with Facebook, changing a few settings can mitigate some of the privacy concerns on the platform.

Facebook's privacy settings can be controlled from either the app or the website, allowing users to have more granular control over who can access their profile information.

However, the company does not currently offer a way to prevent a user's profile from appearing in its own search results when searched by username. So, if someone on Facebook searches for a specific user by name, that person's profile information will still be listed front and center.

However, the methods described below will make it difficult for other users to associate a specific email ID or phone number with the user.

To access Facebook's privacy controls, open the app and tap the hamburger menu (three parallel lines) in the top right corner on Android or bottom right on iOS. Next, select 'Settings and Privacy' then go to 'Settings'.

Now scroll down to the 'Audience and Visibility' section and tap on 'How People Find and Contact You.' Users will now be presented with several options to restrict others from searching for them using their email address or phone number.

To do so, tap 'Who can search for you using the email address you provided' and select 'Only Me' for maximum privacy. Next, do the same for 'Who can look up you using the phone number you provided.'

In both cases, users can also choose 'Friends' over 'Just Me' if they agree with their Facebook friends knowing their email ID or phone number. The other two options are 'Friends of Friends' and 'Everyone', both of which are not recommended for privacy-conscious users.

How to Hide Your Facebook Profile From Strangers

Users can also prevent their Facebook profile from being indexed by third-party search engines, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. For that, go to 'Would you like search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?' then select 'No'.

While the previous two preferences will take effect immediately, the third setting may take some time before taking effect. According to Facebook, user profiles may still be searchable online for a period of time once the setting is enabled.

Privacy settings can also be controlled from the Facebook website. To do that, first, log into the site via a web browser. Now click the down arrow in the top right corner of the Facebook homepage, select 'Settings & Privacy', then press 'Settings' on the drop-down menu.

On the next page, click on 'Privacy' in the left sidebar and then find the three privacy options mentioned above in the right pane. Finally, click on the 'Edit' button next to each option and make the necessary changes to improve privacy on the platform.