TikTok is a popular short-form video social media platform that allows users to create, view, and interact with videos. With over 1 billion monthly active users, TikTok has quickly become one of the most used social media apps in the world. An important feature of TikTok is the ability to view other users’ profiles and videos. However, some users wonder whether their profile views are private or if the people they view can see their activity. This article will examine how profile viewing works on TikTok and whether blocking a user prevents them from seeing if you viewed their profile.
Viewing Profiles on TikTok
There are a few different ways to view someone’s TikTok profile:
You can search for a user directly by typing their username into the search bar at the top of the app. This will bring up their profile so you can view it.
If you come across one of their videos on your For You page or Following feed, you can tap on their profile picture or username to be taken directly to their profile.
You can also find someone in your contacts list if you have them saved already. Go to the Friends section and search for their name to pull up their profile.
The easiest way is often just searching directly by username. As long as the profile is public, you’ll be able to view it by searching the username in TikTok’s search bar.
Blocking Other Users
To block another user on TikTok, you first need to go to their profile page. Once you are on their profile, tap the three dot icon in the top right corner. A menu will appear, tap “Block” from this menu. You will get a popup asking you to confirm that you want to block the user. Tap “Block” again to confirm.
According to TikTok’s Help Center article Blocking users, you can also block someone directly from their video, comment, or message by tapping the three dot icon and then “Block”.
The Android Police article How to block a TikTok user notes that you can block up to 100 users at a time by going to your privacy settings. From there go to “Blocked accounts” and tap “Block accounts”. You can then search for and select multiple users to block all at once.
Effects of Blocking
When you block someone on TikTok, it prevents them from viewing your profile, videos, comments, likes, and direct messages. According to TikTok’s Help Center, blocking disables users from engaging with you in the following ways:
- Viewing your videos, live streams, and video page
- Commenting on your videos or live streams
- Liking or reacting to your videos or live streams
- Sending you direct messages
- Following you or adding you to their FYP
- Tagging you in comments, captions, or videos
- Interacting with you in any way
Essentially, blocking completely removes you from their TikTok experience. They will not get a notification if you block them, but they may notice if they try to view your profile or videos after being blocked.
Seeing Views of Your Profile
TikTok allows users to see who has viewed their profile through a feature called Profile View History. This feature shows the usernames of accounts that have visited your profile in the last 30 days. Profile View History can be enabled in your account settings under “Privacy and Safety.”
According to TikTok’s support article, “You can turn on Profile view history in your settings to see which accounts on TikTok have viewed your profile.”
However, enabling this setting does not automatically show your profile views to others. For other users to see that you viewed their profile, they would also need to have Profile View History turned on. As explained on Reddit, “If you don’t have this option/have it turned off, other people won’t see you in their views.”
So in summary, TikTok allows you to see who has viewed your profile, but others won’t know if you’ve viewed theirs unless they also have enabled the Profile View History feature.
Viewing a Profile You’ve Blocked
When you block someone on TikTok, their profile is no longer visible to you. Once a user is blocked, you will not be able to view their profile or any of their content.
TikTok’s blocking feature completely removes the blocked user’s presence from your view of the app. Their videos will not show up in your For You feed, and you won’t be notified about their activity. You also won’t be able to message or interact with their content in any way.
If you try to directly visit a profile you’ve blocked, you’ll see an error message saying the page is not available. According to TikTok’s support page, blocking someone makes it so their account “basically doesn’t exist” in your version of TikTok.
The only way to view a blocked profile again is to unblock the user. You can do this by going to your account settings, tapping “Privacy” and then “Blocked accounts” to access your block list. From there, you can unblock accounts as needed.
In summary, blocking on TikTok hides all aspects of a user’s account. Once blocked, you will not be able to view their profile or any of their activity unless you decide to unblock them.
Does Blocking Hide Your Views
One of the key questions around blocking someone on TikTok is whether it hides the fact that you’ve viewed their profile from them. The short answer is – yes, blocking someone prevents them from seeing if you’ve viewed their profile.
When you block a user on TikTok, it severs the connection between your accounts in both directions. This means that not only will the blocked person’s content no longer show up for you, but your profile and activity is also hidden from them.
According to TikTok’s support article, blocking someone means “they won’t be able to find you or see your videos on TikTok”. This suggests that all traces of your account, including any views of the blocked profile, are removed after blocking.
Users on Reddit have also confirmed that blocking hides your views. So you can check out someone’s TikTok profile anonymously by viewing it, then blocking them after – they won’t know you ever viewed it.
In summary, blocking someone is an effective way to erase any trace of your interaction on TikTok. Once blocked, the user won’t be able to see if you’ve liked, commented on, or viewed their content.
TikTok Account Privacy
TikTok allows users to choose between having a public or private account. With a public account, anyone can view your profile, videos, likes, followers, and who you follow. A private account limits access so only users you approve can see your content (source).
Users under 18 automatically have a private account by default. Their privacy settings limit who can interact with their content and profile (source).
TikTok’s privacy settings allow you to control who can view your profile and content. Making your account private limits the ability for blocked users to interact with your profile.
Workarounds
Even though blocking someone on TikTok will hide your profile and prevent them from viewing your videos, there are some workarounds a blocked person could use to still see your profile:
They could log out of their account and view your profile anonymously. TikTok allows anyone to browse public profiles without an account.
They could create a secondary “fake” account you haven’t blocked and look up your profile that way. There is no limit on the number of accounts someone can create.
They could use a friend or family member’s device that you haven’t blocked. As long as they are logged into TikTok, they’d have access to your profile.
They could try viewing your profile using a web browser instead of the mobile app. Some users have reported being able to bypass blocking this way.
Overall, while blocking limits access to your profile, a determined person could find ways around it using alternative accounts or devices. The only way to completely restrict access is to make your TikTok account private.
Conclusion
In summary, when you block someone on TikTok, it prevents them from interacting with you, commenting on your content, messaging you, or viewing your profile and videos. However, blocking does not hide or anonymize previous views you’ve made on their profile or content before blocking them.
TikTok does not provide a way to privately or anonymously view other profiles. Any views you make on a profile are visible to the profile owner in their analytics, regardless of any later blocking. The only way to prevent a user from seeing you’ve viewed their profile is to refrain from viewing it altogether.
If you want to browse TikTok more privately, you can consider using an alternative “burner” account not connected to your main profile. But in general, TikTok operates as a public social platform where profile views are visible unless anonymity measures are taken by the viewer.
The main options to prevent unwanted interactions are making your profile private, using block features judiciously, and being cautious about viewing profiles you don’t want to show interest in. With care and some trial and error, you can find a good balance of privacy and participation on TikTok.
