Does a Person Know if You Hide Her on Facebook?
By Joshua Phillips
Though the primary goal of Facebook is social networking and having its users add as many friends as possible, there are some people with whom you simply do not want to associate. Whether it's a jealous significant other from your past or old friends you do not want to get back in touch with, you can hide yourself, preventing them from ever finding your account.
What Does Blocking Entail?
Hiding from someone on Facebook, or blocking him, hides your Facebook profile from that user in several ways. If you block a friend, you will no longer be friends with him on Facebook. This also means that blocked users cannot send you messages, post on your Timeline or even see what you or your friends post on your Timeline. Finally, the blocked user cannot find your Timeline when searching your name or even when directly visiting your Facebook URL. For all intents and purposes, you don't exist on Facebook to that user.
Blocking a User
You can block any person who has a Facebook account who has not blocked you, regardless of whether you are friends or not. You can navigate to his Timeline and click the gear icon followed by "Report/Block." A dialog box appears in which you can select "Block (name)" and confirm the action to immediately block the user. Facebook then redirects you back to your news feed as you cannot view the Timeline of any user you block. You can unblock a user through the Privacy menu at the upper right corner of any Facebook page.
Hiding Specific Posts
Sometimes you do not want to hide from a person completely but simply want to hide specific content you do not want some people to see. To do this, use the Audience Selector to define who can see a post. Depending on your settings, this may be set to "Public" or "Friends," but you can change this to "Custom" and choose specific people to hide the post from. This allows you to hide content from a user but not completely block him altogether. Additionally, you can hide the content a user posts in your news feed by navigating to his timeline and unchecking "Show in News Feed" in the Friends menu.
Is the Person Notified?
Regardless of whether you hide content posted to your Timeline or block someone, the person you hide from will never receive a notification of your action. If you block a Facebook user, he will never come across your Timeline until you choose to undo it; it will appear as if you never had a Facebook account. If you block a user who is added to your friends list, he may get suspicious when you are no longer friends and your Timeline suddenly disappears.
References
Writer Bio
Joshua Phillips has done it all when it comes to video games: strategy guides, previews, reviews, in-depth interviews with developers and extensive public relations work. He has written for websites such as Hardcore Gaming 101 and MyInsideGamer.