Have you ever been a victim of blocking? Do multiple questions like "Am I being blocked? Can I see who blocked me? How can I block somebody? What can I do to safeguard my profile on Facebook?" arises in your mind time and again? If yes, then you are on the right platform to get all your answers.
In this article, we will be covering all the aspects related to what blocking is and how you can easily block somebody without their knowledge.
Image Source: Google Pics
What is blocking?
Blocking is an act of completely distancing yourself from a specific person on Facebook to safeguard your confidential posts, likes, and other activities you do on Facebook. This feature leads to automatically unfriending the individual on Facebook without his or her knowledge.
When you block somebody on Facebook you both won't be able to contact each other via messages or timeline posts. Also, you both will not be able to find each other's profile on Facebook once blocked.
Weird facts about Facebook making you beware of your confidential data -
- Facebook has almost 8 new users signing up as new accounts every second.
- The total active users in Facebook per second on an average are between 10,000 to 20,000.
- The shopping scams tripled in 2020 during the covid 19 pandemics increasing up to $117 million scams in the initial 6 months of this year.
- In America as per the reports by Gallup, one out of four people gets scammed because of prevailing cyber crimes with time. This includes phishing, online shopping scams, fake relationship scams, life-threatening scams, money scams, etc.
- Work from home scams showed an increase in the last 2 years. Even the Netbooknews CEO - Kenny Trinh said that "Avoid the financial Rewards being offered on social media or the similar kind of benefits without a proper background history, as it may sound too good to be true & is likely to be a scam." Especially the work from home opportunities asking you to invest money with the surety of getting the doubled amount is likely to be a scam.
There are many other scams as well that take place on Facebook, be sure to BLOCK their profiles on Facebook as soon as you witness those and report them immediately. Take care of who you let access your confidential data. Avoid sharing personal ids like aadhaar numbers, pan cards, card pins, expiry dates, message codes, etc to unknown faces on Facebook.
Steps to block someone on Facebook
Blocking has become an easier step to choose from like never before. You can easily block someone on Facebook via your Facebook app or direct Facebook site on your mobile phone, desktop computer/laptops, tablets, Macs, etc by following the below steps -
STEP 1 - In the initial step, all you need to do is visit the link www.facebook.com on your web browser.
STEP 2 - Login with your registered email and password with which you wish to block someone.
STEP 3 - Once you are logged in to your Facebook account, you need to click on the account icon present on the right side. Hit the down arrow button there.
STEP 4 - Now, you need to select the "Settings & Privacy" option.
STEP 5 - Select the "Settings" options present underneath "Settings & Privacy" option.
STEP 6 - Here, on this page, you need to click on the "Blocking" option in the left-hand side menu under the "Settings" option.
STEP 7 - Once you see the "Block users" option, you need to type the name of the person or page that you wish to block on Facebook in the search bar option present just beside it.
STEP 8 - Hit the "Block" button once you find the profile you want to block.
STEP 9 - While performing the above step, you will encounter a situation where you will see the dialog box popping suddenly on your page telling you about the cons of blocking someone.
STEP 10 - Click on the block {username} for example "Block Lavina" after reading them all.
STEP 11 - The above step will now completely block the user on Facebook without them getting notified about this. Also, you will be able to see the blocker person's name on your block list.
STEP 12 - Over time, if you wish to unblock this person, then you just have to select the "Unblock" option followed by the "Confirm" option. This will unblock the person on Facebook but still, you won't be friends with them till the time you send them a friend request again.
Note: Once the user has been unblocked by you on Facebook, you cannot block them again before 48 hours.
What happens when you block someone on Facebook?
Blocking somebody on Facebook results in complete closure of the conversation between the person who blocked and the person who got blocked. Once you have blocked somebody, then both the parties won't be able to view each other's profiles. It also unfriends that person till the time you add them again. This means you are far away from viewing that person's activities, posts, timeline details, likes, etc on Facebook.
But in a special case, if you both are a part of the common group, then if that person has posted something on that group, you will be able to view other people responses like comments, likes, etc on that although you will still witness an unlikely gap in the comments threads where the blocked person has replied.
Steps to know if you are blocked on Facebook
STEP 1 - In the first step, you need to logout yourself from the Facebook site or a Facebook app.
STEP 2 - Once you have successfully logged out yourself, you need to go ahead with the Facebook search of that ID/Profile in the Google via following way -
site:facebook.com {Full Name} for example site:facebook.com Lavina Chopra
STEP 3 - Once you can see the desired account in the Google search, then all you need to do is copy the URL link of this profile.
STEP 4 - In the fourth step, log in again to your Facebook account via app or Facebook site. Paste the URL link generated above in the search box. Click enter.
STEP 5 - If you can see his profile, then chances are there that you are not blocked but if you witness the following statement - "Sorry, this content isn't available right now," then surely you have been blocked by that person.
Safety Measures -
Safety is a must, everything else is still secondary! Apart from blocking the people who are being violent/abusive, you can opt for the new feature set by Facebook - "Profile Locking".
As per the statement given by TechCrunch - this feature primarily came into the picture for women because of the increasing women safety-related cases in India. This way the females will be able to share their personal information and upload their pictures by restricting it to the audience she chooses i.e., close friends, safeguarding her confidential data from unknown Facebook users.
Final Words -
Blocking is a feature that acts as a boon and a bane both depending on the audience. It's a boon to safeguard your profile and confidential data from suspicious and fraudulent profiles. It's a bane for the people who get blocked because they will never get to know that they have been blocked on Facebook.
References -
https://thecustomizewindows.com/2012/08/blocking-people-in-facebook-facts-and-flaws/
https://elfsight.com/blog/2017/05/facebook-limits-and-blocks-avoiding-account-bans/
https://www.buddyloans.com/blog/facebook-in-realtime/
https://www.quora.com/What-is-blocking-What-happens-when-I-block-someone-on-FB