You know those pretty annoying invites you always receive on Facebook to “play Candy Crush” or “join the Millionaires Club”? You may have wondered what you could do to make them begone, never again to be seen; especially since declining or deleting the requests will not make them go away. This is the time to call in “the big guns” called Privacy Settings, and here’s how to go about it. It’s really simpler than you think.
Blocking someone from sending you messages on Facebook is as simple as taking these steps:
- Log into your account
- Go to Account
- Choose Privacy Settings
- Scroll to the bottom of the page until you see Block Lists
By selecting Block Lists, you will be able to block someone by their name or email address. If you repeatedly get those application invites – that make you just want to scream – as well as messages from individuals and groups, you can block them as well. Just enter the person or group’s name that keeps sending the application invites and they will stop showing up.
Similarly, you can block event invitations from specific users. If you keep getting invitations to performances you are not interested in, but don’t have the heart to tell your friend. Don’t sweat it. Just block it, and they would never know!
How Does Blocking Work?
When you block someone completely, that person won’t be able to find you in Searches or view your Profile at all. Information you have listed on your page about that person (friend details, etc) will disappear. But if you still want to keep an eye on someone whom you have blocked on Facebook, that will definitely not work. Because when you block someone, their profile won’t show up for you, the same way yours won’t show up for them.
How Can I Know Who Visited My Facebook Profile?
If you are blocking a friend’s harmless, yet slightly annoying messages about applications. Rest easy, you won’t ruin your friendship by just trying to give yourself some peace of mind, and a less cluttered Facebook page. Your friend won’t know that you have blocked his requests, and you will still have contact with that friend in other areas of Facebook.
If you are blocking messages from someone you don’t know, or don’t wish to have contact with, he still won’t be notified that you have blocked him, and you won’t have to see Facebook messages of any kind from him again. Even if you share mutual friends, the person you have blocked won’t be able to see your comments on their walls. But they will see the comments you make on a mutual friend’s status updates or photos, and you will be able to see theirs too.
If you want to undo a block for whatever reason, you can’t just edit your list of blocked names and email addresses and have everything go back to normal. In order to re-establish a Facebook friendship, you will need to send another friend request.
How to Make Yourself a Lesser Target
Want to reduce to the barest minimum the possibilities of receiving unwanted messages? Simply stroll to the Privacy Settings section, take a look at what’s visible to everyone on your profile. You can make it so that only friends, or friends of friends can see things like photos, status updates, your birthday, contact information, your bio, and more. You can even create different friends lists for different types of people – e.g Primary School Friends, Camp Friends, Secondary School Friends, Church or Mosque Friends and so on -. This will keep the information you share out of the reach of the public and those not in certain list.
It is also wise to check your privacy settings REGULARLY since Facebook sometimes makes changes that could broadcast information you would rather keep under wraps to those you don’t want to see it.
In conclusion, you can either block someone COMPLETELY, or block ONLY their application invites to you, and you can also ensure that the information you share can only be seen by a select group of people.
See Also: FACEBOOK POKE: What Does it Mean?
