Can Instagram Followers See Who I Follow?

Discover whether your Instagram followers can see who you follow, and learn how to manage your privacy to control visibility of following list.

Can Instagram Followers See Who I Follow?

The crisp and one-word answer to this question is yes, in general, your Instagram followers can see who you follow. But we know that you didn’t come to this article seeking a simple yes or no answer.

So today we will discuss how the basic Instagram works, why it is important for anyone to know who the followers are and why the followers have the liberty to see who you follow on Instagram.

More importantly, what can you do to maintain your privacy with other security options? So without further ado, let's begin with the basics.

Instagram today is more than just a social media platform, it’s also a digital marketplace. A market where you are either a buyer or a seller and even if you are not.

Instagram is still part of your daily routine checking out reels, posts, memes, stories, and other types of content to follow, enjoy, like, share and comment so amidst all this what are your privacy precautions. We guess there is not.

Many people do not understand this but spending a lot of time on social media platforms makes you exposed to a lot of crowds and uncalled attention.

Anyone can see your whereabouts, know what you do, where you live, where you work, what you eat and what you drink. Although it is a sensitive topic, we today are going to focus on Instagram followers.

The Basics Of Instagram

On Instagram when someone follows you they are seen in your followers list and they then have access to see your posts, stories, and any form of Instagram updates.

You in return can choose to follow them or choose not to, it's completely your choice but having a good number of followers and most importantly the right followers makes all the difference.

Now to again answer your question - can your followers see who you follow on Instagram?

Yes, this is how typically it works. Any of your followers can visit your profile, go on the following list, and check out who else are you following.

In that list, they will also find a separate list of mutual which consists of any of the users or profiles that both you and your follower follow.

Initially, Instagram is a public platform so by default your account remains public and is accessible to anyone using Instagram.

To get a better understanding of this let us take a look at the differences between public and private accounts.

Public vs Private Accounts

Public account

If your Instagram is public then -

  • Anyone can see your following list irrespective of whether they follow you or not.
  • People have access to your interactions across the whole platform such as the likes, comments, and the accounts you follow.
  • They can see your following list and know who you follow.

Private Accounts

This is an option that you have to enable by going to the settings menu from your profile. Once you make your account private, you restrict and limit the audience and keep your privacy allowed only to your followers, so when your account is private -

  • Only your followers can see your following list.
  • Those who do not follow you will not be able to see anything related to you such as your posts, stories, and who follows you or even who you follow.

This is a greater privacy and control mechanism and lately is being encouraged among people to use it for general safety and privacy precautions.

This leads to another important question which is how to hide your following list from others.

Specifically, there is a particular way to hide your following list entirely but there are a few steps that you can take to manage your privacy in a protected manner.

Setting your account to private - It is the easiest way to take control of your privacy. Follow the below steps -

  • Go to the Instagram profile
  • Click on the three lines in the top-right corner
  • Go to Settings and then tap on Privacy
  • Toggle on the private account switch

Once you do this, you have successfully made your account private and do not have to worry about your following list being exposed or accessible to everyone in public.

Remove or block accounts and followers

This is another way of dealing with the idea of keeping your account private: you can block some specific accounts you do not know or think are someone you should keep distance from.

To remove a follower, here are the following steps to perform -

  • Go to your Instagram profile
  • Tap on the followers list
  • Find the follower and click on the three dots next to their name
  • Click on remove

When you block someone, they will completely lose any access to your profile on Instagram, they can’t even search for you.

If you are a content creator or a social media influencer who often seeks to buy Instagram followers, it is an excellent strategy to gain popularity on Instagram but at the same time do not lose on the fact that your daily life is not for everyone to follow.

There is also a third way to deal with it and that is

Only accepting known people

You can set a following permission which means when people click on the follow button on your profile you will get a notification and if you know the person personally or professionally and think that they are a friend, family, coworker, or relative you can accept their following request else you can reject them.

Keeping your account public to only known people and real Instagram followers and then making your account private keeps your posts among the people you know and is also a form of privacy.

Conclusion

At last, we can only tell you that Instagram is a public platform but by taking the right measures you can maintain your privacy and ensure safety and protection related to your stories, reels, the content you post, the memes you share, and everything that is related to your social life.

InstBlast is a premium provider of Instagram Followers that also provides free Instagram Followers service as a test.

Assuring your privacy and doing everything to protect it is quintessential. A social media platform has many antisocial elements that you certainly do not want to deal with. Best of luck.