Facebook provides an interesting feature that allows you to place restrictions on selected friends. In today’s post, I explain what this option is, when it is worth using it and how to check if someone has restricted you on Facebook.
What does “restricted” mean on Facebook?
Restricting on Facebook involves adding selected friends to a list of people who will not be able to access your profile in full. Once a friend has been added to such a list, he or she will only be able to see content that you share publicly or in which you tag him or her.
For each post, Facebook users can select whether it should be visible to the public or, for example, only to friends. However, some contents are always public information and cannot be hidden – even from people with limited access to our profile. These contents include:
- name, profile picture, cover photo,
- gender, age,
- networks of connection, such as school or workplace,
- user ID (always visible in the profile URL),
- country and language.
Of course, there is no obligation to provide all of the above information, but once you do, it is visible to everyone.
When is it a good idea to add friends to a restricted list on Facebook?
The option to add selected friends to a restricted list can be useful in many situations. For example, it is a good idea to add to this list people with whom you have a more business or official relationship and with whom you would not want to share moments from your private life.
Often, people from whom users would like to hide certain information include employers, work colleagues or certain family members. With Facebook’s restricted list feature, this is possible.
Adding a friend to the restricted list is very easy. All you have to do is go to the person’s profile, click on the ‘Friends’ button with the human icon, select ‘Edit Friends List’ and then ‘Restricted’.
How do you check if someone has restricted you on Facebook?
Let me get down to the nitty-gritty of how to find out whether a Facebook friend has restricted us. You should know that Facebook does not inform you directly about the restrictions. You can find out about it by analysing certain premises.
So to find out if someone has restricted your access on Facebook, it is best to follow the steps below:
- go to the profile of the friend you suspect of restricting you on Facebook. If you manage to access the friend’s profile and posts, it will at least be a clear indication that you have not been completely blocked by him. However, of course, this does not preclude restricting access,
- review your friend’s recent posts. If there are significant gaps between them, or if you do not see some of the posts you saw earlier, this could mean that you are on a restricted list. Of course, you can’t be sure here either – it could be that your friend has deleted some posts, or rarely adds them,
- ask a mutual friend to review the person’s profile. It is worth checking whether other people have access to more of a friend’s posts than you do. From this, you can draw clearer conclusions,
- ask your friend directly if he or she has added you to a restricted list and the reason for this. Sometimes, instead of looking for information all around, it’s worth just talking and explaining the situation. It may be that a friend has restricted you accidentally. The option to add friends to a restricted list is located just below the option to add friends to a custom list.
In summary, Facebook does not explicitly tell you when a user has added you to a restricted list. However, you can come to this conclusion yourself by analysing the profile of the friend or by asking other users for help.
