Having someone follow you on Facebook when you don’t want them to can be annoying. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t have a direct way to stop someone from following you without blocking them entirely. However, there are a few tricks you can use to make yourself harder to follow or limit what someone sees if they do follow you.
Adjust Your Privacy Settings
The easiest way to stop someone from following you closely on Facebook is to adjust your privacy settings so they see less of your profile and posts. Here are some settings to adjust:
- Limit the audience for your posts – Choose “Friends Except” and specifically exclude the person so they don’t see your posts.
- Restrict access to your photos – Under the Photos Privacy setting, choose “Friends Except” and exclude the person.
- Limit the posts on your timeline – Adjust the Timeline and Tagging settings to disallow anyone from posting on your timeline.
- Adjust who can see your friends list – Choose “Only Me” under the Friends List visibility setting.
- Limit who can look you up – Use the How People Find and Contact You setting to exclude that person from finding you in searches.
Making these changes means that person won’t get updates on your posts or photos even if they follow you. They also won’t be able to learn more about you by seeing your friends list or searching for you.
Restrict Their Interactions
You can also limit a person’s ability to interact with you on Facebook without fully blocking them. Here are some options:
- Unfollow them – You’ll stay Facebook friends but their posts won’t show up in your News Feed.
- Turn off notifications – Mute notifications from that person so you don’t get alerted about their activity.
- Delete comments – If they comment on your posts, you can delete those comments.
- Report any harassment – If they are posting harassing messages, report them to Facebook.
Combined with the privacy settings above, these steps will greatly reduce their ability to engage with you on Facebook without blocking the person entirely.
Create a Restricted List
Facebook has a tool called Lists that lets you group friends in different ways. You can create a Restricted list for people you want to limit, and then set that whole list to see very little of your profile or posts.
To do this:
- Go to your Friends list and choose Create List
- Give the list a name like “Restricted”
- Search for and add the person you want to restrict to this list
- Go to the Privacy shortcuts menu
- Choose Customize settings for Restricted
- Limit Restricted to seeing minimal or no posts
This is an easy shortcut to restrict multiple people without changing settings multiple times.
Limit Their Profile Information
If you are concerned about them being able to view your profile details, here are some steps to limit the info someone can see:
- Switch your profile view to acquaintances – This limits profile views to minimal info.
- Limit your work and education info – Adjust so these details are not visible.
- Don’t add your address – Make sure your address is not on your profile.
- Adjust contact info settings – Change to allow only friends to see your contact info.
Deactivate Your Account Temporarily
If you are uncomfortable having someone follow you but don’t want to delete your Facebook account, you can temporarily deactivate your account instead. This makes your profile and posts inaccessible to anyone for the time period you choose. When ready, you can easily reactivate your account and none of your information will be lost.
To deactivate your account:
- Click on the triangle in the right corner and choose Settings & Privacy
- Click on Settings
- Click on Your Facebook Information in left column
- Choose Deactivation and Deletion
- Choose Deactivate Account, then Continue to Deactivation
When you are ready to reactivate, just log back in to your account with your email and password.
Block Them as a Last Resort
If the above options don’t work, the last resort is to fully block the person from being able to follow you or see your profile on Facebook. To block someone:
- Click on the ellipses (…) in the top right of their profile
- Choose Block
- Confirm that you want to block the user
When you block someone, they will no longer be able to see your profile, contact you, start conversations, add you as a friend, or interact with you on Facebook in any way.
Conclusion
Having an unwanted follower on Facebook can be frustrating, but there are steps you can take to limit their interactions without fully blocking them. Adjusting your privacy settings, restricting their access, removing their ability to contact you, and limiting the information they can see about you will allow you to take control of the situation. With the right combination of settings, you can drastically reduce their ability to follow you closely without having to resort to completely banning them from your Facebook experience.