By default, Facebook makes most of your information public. People concerned about their online privacy choose to keep their profile private and limit what others can see on their Facebook page.
Unfortunately, even if you choose to create an anonymous Facebook account, there are methods other users can use to view your user information. This article explains the tricks and loopholes other Facebook users can use to gain access to their personal Facebook account and what you can do to protect your private information.
How Facebook Private Profiles Work
A private Facebook profile is a profile that can only be accessed by friendship with the account holder. If you are not on your friends list, you will not be able to see your information, messages, Facebook friends or even your Facebook profile picture.
If someone’s Facebook profile is private, it means that person has reviewed their privacy settings and turned off the option to reveal personal information to strangers. These settings include Facebook friends list privacy, preventing search engines from showing your Facebook account in search results, Facebook posting privacy, profile picture privacy, and more.
This won’t make you completely anonymous, but it will help you control who can access and use your personal information.
Things you can always see on your Facebook profile (private or public) include your username, a thumbnail version of your profile picture (if you have one), and your mutual Facebook friends.
How to view your private Facebook profile
Unfortunately, even with your Facebook account’s privacy settings, malicious people can still access your private information. Facebook is known for its security and privacy scandals, and for good reason.
While the company claims to always work to keep personal data private, there are some workarounds that allow others to view blocked Facebook profiles. It helps you understand how to protect yourself from the unwanted attention of hackers, data brokers who collect large amounts of user information. and other Facebook users.
Here are the most common ways to view your private Facebook profile.
Method 1: Google indexing
Some people don’t need to see your personal profile to access your private photos and personal information. If you’re not careful with your privacy settings, most of your personal information can be found on Google. Attackers can take advantage of a process called Google indexing, which analyzes the content of a website (Facebook) and adds it to the search algorithms. Essentially, Google finds all public information about you on Facebook and displays it online.
To find information about Facebook users who use Google, type their name into Google Search and add Facebook to your query to narrow your search. Google provides all the information it finds about people on public Facebook.
How to win: You can easily limit what information Facebook can share with Google by changing your Facebook privacy settings. To do this, open the Facebook app on your Android or iPhone and go to Settings & Privacy > Settings.
Scroll down to Audience & Exposure and choose how people can find and connect with you. Below, select a number. You can also change these settings in the browser version of Facebook.
This change will take effect after a while and search engines will not immediately stop linking to your profile. However, if you want to eliminate the risk of strangers finding your user profile information on Google, we recommend disabling this setting as soon as possible.
Method 2: Send a friend request
The easiest way to see someone’s private profile on Facebook is to send them a friend request. By default, if you’re friends with someone, you can see their personal Facebook account.
Once you send a request, you can simply wait for the other person to accept it. When that happens, you can see sections, stories, status updates, old and new posts, tagged photos, and more.
However, if the user doesn’t accept the friend request, there’s nothing else you can do. If you don’t become a friend, you won’t be able to see the other person’s Facebook profile, and you won’t know how long you’ll have to wait for the account holder to respond to your friend request. Since Facebook allows users to ignore friend requests, there is a chance that they may not respond at all.
How to check: A simple strategy to keep strangers from leaving your Facebook personal space is to never accept random friend requests from people you don’t know. It gets even harder if you don’t take a good look at your Facebook friends list and there are a lot of friends there.
Someone targeting your account can use information found on other accounts you’re logged into (such as TikTok or Instagram accounts) to think it’s someone they’ve seen before, such as someone missing from school, someone, the your partner or your partner. Employees of previous jobs.
Method 3: Use a third party application
Unfortunately, even if you follow all precautions and customize your account as Facebook allows, people can still use third-party tools to access your personal information.
Facebook’s profile viewing and spyware tools allow users to access hidden photos, profile information, private posts, and more. Some spyware applications can also access Messenger chats.
However, most apps need to be installed on your device (smartphone or computer) to work. This means that your personal data should be safe unless someone gains direct access to your gadget or tricks you into downloading and installing malicious applications. Just finding some hidden Facebook photos might get some people’s attention.
How to check: There is no active way to avoid this. Meanwhile, you can use a password manager and malware scanner to make your account more secure.
Is it time to kill Facebook forever?
Facebook is a security and privacy crisis, and the last way to protect your data is to permanently delete your Facebook account. If you’re not ready to say goodbye to Facebook, you can try deactivating your account. Give it a few weeks or months before you end the relationship completely and see if you can live without Facebook.