Hiding someone’s status on social media or messaging apps can be useful for a variety of reasons. You may want to hide your own status for privacy reasons, or you may need to hide someone else’s status if it contains inappropriate or sensitive information. While each app has slightly different settings, there are some general steps you can take to hide a status update on many popular platforms.
Why Would You Want to Hide Someone’s Status?
There are a few common reasons why someone might want to hide another person’s status update:
- To protect privacy – If the status contains personal or private information, hiding it from public view can help protect that person’s privacy.
- To avoid embarrassment – An inappropriate, offensive, or unintentionally embarrassing status can be hidden to avoid backlash or criticism.
- To remove insensitive content – Hiding a status that contains insensitive, inflammatory, or harmful content can prevent it from being widely seen and shared.
- To take down unauthorized content – If the status contains unauthorized information, images, or other content, the original poster may want it removed from public view.
- To de-escalate a conflict – Hiding a controversial or antagonistic status can help calm a heated situation and avoid further engagement.
- To aid law enforcement – In cases of threats, harassment, or illegal activity, hiding a status may assist any ongoing investigations.
Steps to Hide Someone Else’s Status
If you need to hide someone else’s status update, here are the basic steps to do so on some major platforms:
- Go to the person’s profile page and locate the status update you want to hide.
- Click on the three dots “…” in the top right corner of the status box.
- Select “Hide from Timeline” from the dropdown menu.
- Confirm that you want to hide the post.
This will immediately remove the status from public view on their profile. However, it will still be visible to the original poster.
- Go to the person’s profile and tap on the status content you want to hide.
- Tap the three dots icon in the top right corner.
- Choose “Hide” from the menu.
The status will be hidden from their profile right away.
- Go to the tweet you want to hide on the person’s profile.
- Click the down arrow icon on the top right of the tweet.
- Select “Hide Tweet” from the dropdown menu.
- Confirm that you want to hide the tweet.
This will immediately remove the tweet from public view.
- Open the WhatsApp chat with the person who posted the status.
- Tap and hold the status to select it.
- Tap the trash icon to delete the status.
- Confirm that you want to delete the status update.
The status will be deleted from the chat. However, other recipients may still see it in their chats until manually deleted.
Snapchat
Unfortunately, there is no direct way to hide someone else’s public Snapchat story. You would need to ask the person to remove it themselves. For privacy reasons, Snapchat does not allow other users to moderate or hide public content.
Steps to Hide Your Own Status
If you need to remove your own status update from public view, here is how to do it:
- Go to your profile and click on the status update you want to hide.
- Select “Only Me” from the audience selector underneath the post.
- This will change the audience to just you, hiding it from everyone else.
- Go to your profile and tap the status you want to hide.
- Tap the three dots icon and choose “Hide”
- Open your WhatsApp account.
- Go to Settings > Account > Privacy.
- Tap “Status” and select “My Contacts Except…”
- Select the contacts you want to hide your status from.
This will prevent specific contacts from seeing your status updates.
Unfortunately, once you tweet, there is no way to fully hide it from your profile or followers. You can delete the tweet, but some third-party sites may still have indexed or archived it.
Snapchat
- Go to your profile and tap your story.
- Press and hold the status you want to hide.
- Tap the trash icon to delete it.
This will remove the status from your public story.
Important Things to Keep in Mind
When hiding someone’s status or removing your own, keep these limitations in mind:
- Other people may have already seen, shared, or screenshotted the status before it was hidden. It’s impossible to erase all traces.
- Hidden content may still appear in search engine caches or archives until it is recrawled.
- If you hide someone else’s status without their consent, it could damage your relationship with them.
- Deleted statuses can still be retrieved if the platform is served with a valid search warrant.
- If the status contains illegal or dangerous content, reporting it is better than just hiding it.
- If in doubt, talk to the original poster first before hiding their status.
Conclusion
Hiding or deleting social media statuses should only be done when absolutely necessary. While these steps can help limit exposure of inappropriate, unauthorized, or sensitive content, the content may already have been seen and shared by others. Whenever possible, speaking directly with the original poster or reporting dangerous content through proper channels is better than merely hiding it from view. Think carefully before hiding someone else’s status without their consent, as it could be seen as censorship or damage your relationship.
| Platform | Steps to Hide Someone Else’s Status | Steps to Hide Your Own Status |
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No direct way to hide tweets | |
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| Snapchat | No way to hide someone else’s public story |
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can someone tell if I hide their status update?
On most platforms, the user will not receive a notification if you hide their status update. However, they will notice it is no longer visible on their profile. On WhatsApp, the sender will be notified if you delete their status from your chat.
Is hiding the same as deleting or reporting content?
No, hiding content simply removes it from public view, but does not delete it from the platform’s servers. The original poster can still access the hidden content. Reporting goes a step further by flagging the content for review by the platform’s moderators.
What happens if I change my mind and want to unhide content?
On Facebook and Instagram, you can reverse the action and make the hidden status visible again with a couple of clicks. However, on platforms like Twitter and Snapchat, deletion is permanent and cannot be undone.
Can someone else hide my status without me knowing?
On most platforms, other users cannot directly hide or delete your status updates without your knowledge. However, platform administrators may remove content that violates policies. Also, law enforcement with proper legal authority can request deletion or hiding of illegal content.
Is hidden content really gone forever from the internet?
Not necessarily. Even if you hide or delete a status update from the original platform, copies could still exist on other sites that have indexed or cached the content. So while hiding it can limit exposure, the content could still remain in archives or search engine caches until they recrawl the web.
What should I do if I spot a dangerous or threatening status?
Rather than simply hiding the content, it’s important to properly report any dangerous or illegal statuses to the appropriate platforms and authorities. This ensures action can be taken to address the threat and prevent harm.
Key Takeaways
- Hiding someone’s status immediately removes it from public view but does not permanently delete it.
- You can hide both your own statuses as well as someone else’s on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat.
- However, on Twitter and other sites, deletion is often permanent and statuses cannot be recovered.
- Hidden content may still exist in archives and caches even after being removed from the main platform.
- Talk to the original status poster before hiding their content without consent.
- If you see dangerous or illegal status content, report it properly rather than just hiding it.
The Importance of Responsible Status Posting
Ultimately, avoiding the need to hide statuses comes down to being responsible in what you post in the first place. Here are some guidelines:
- Don’t post private, sensitive, or confidential information publicly.
- Make sure you have permission to share information about others.
- Refrain from posting harmful, offensive, or illegal content.
- Use privacy settings to control who can see your status updates.
- Think carefully about the possible implications before posting an update.
- Periodically review and clean up your public statuses and posts.
Following these rules of thumb means your statuses are less likely to need hiding later on!