Are you looking for detailed information in Instagram’s restrict feature? Do you want to know how you can restrict other people’s profiles? Do you want to know what the restricting function does when you use it? Or are you looking for step-by-step details on how you can restrict or un restrict an account on Instagram? Or do you want to know what sections this function differs in, from the blocking feature of Instagram?
If yes, then you came to the right place, Instagram respects the privacy of its users and it makes sure that their users have the features required to stay private while using this application, if someone keeps on sending you messages and you don’t want to reply or you want the other person to stop sending you messages, you can simply block the other person and the messages won’t reach you as that person has been blocked by you, but there is another option that you can use, it is the Restrict feature, and it is a more subtle function to blocking on Instagram, it helps you in controlling the awkward moments that you might get after you block someone you know in real life, after all they will know that you blocked them, and luckily the Restrict feature helps you in facing such problems, the reason is that it is a little bit more subtle than the block function and what it’s capable of doing.
What Does Restricting Someone on Instagram do:
Now the question arises, what happens when you restrict some other person. We are already aware of what blocking the other person can do, it blocks your interaction with that person and doesn’t send any if the messages that the person sends to you, on the other hand, restrict feature let’s you restrict your interaction without letting the other person know, and it doesn’t alert them, this feature was first introduced as an anti bullying feature for Instagram m and it also gives you more control over what comments you and you followers see in your posts, and this restricts what other people are posting on your profile. The whole idea behind the restrict option is that now you can hide someone’s activity on Instagram without having to block them, it is aimed towards protecting users from bullying in general, it also provides protection from harassing, abusing, or annoying repetitive comments and messages on their profiles, whether someone is dealing with a cyber bully or a toxic friendship, they can now use the restrict option and take a more subtle approach than blocking the person, so in short, this feature stops or prevents the other account from approaching you without the other account realizing and knowing, Instagram’s commitment to their user’s privacy explains why we cannot see several things that are happening to our profile, we don’t get to see who visited our profile and we don’t get to see the amount of impressions on our user profile and this is because Instagram works hard to protect the privacy of all Instagram users, which includes us and every other user of this platform, it is to be notified that you are most probably on other social media platforms as well, and restricting a person from Instagram only will drive them to send messages to you through other social media platforms, and this is why it is advised that you block them from other frequently used social media platforms as well.
Restricting someone on Instagram is considered to be a subtle and polite way of blocking them simply because they don’t want the other person to find out that they have been blocked by you, so people now prefer to use the restrict feature, but now the question arises, what does using the restrict feature actually hide from the person who is restricted?
What Restrictions it Applies:
When you block someone, it hides everything from them that can be found in your profile, including your profile picture, this is mostly how people know that they have been blocked, the restrict feature does no such thing, it shows every post that you make using your account to the person who has been restricted, but it hides their comments that they make on your post, similarly when you block someone, they are not able to send you messages anymore, and this is why the restrict feature allows them to send the message and shows them that it had been sent, but it hides the message from you, so the restrict feature allows them to not even realize that they have been restricted and it has proved to be a very useful feature for many different users of this social media platform.
Moreover, Instagram will not bother you by sending you a notification if they comment on your post or send you a direct message using Instagram but it will hide the comment and hide the message while showing that it has been done from that person’s side, and to see the restricted person’s comment you will have to tap on the “see comment” option and then choose one of the three options that are displayed in front of you, select “approve” if you want the comment to be approved to be visible on your post by you and other people, select “delete” if you want to remove the comment, or you can ignore it.
The restricted user’s messages will also be visible if you choose to view them in the “message requests” tab.
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How to Restrict Someone from your Account:
If you want to know how you can use this feature which allows you to partially block the other user without having them noticing or realizing it, you can restrict someone using any phone or even a personal computer, you can use an apple iPhone or an Android phone to do this, you can do it by following the steps that are given below for your convenience,
- Open the user’s profile and then tap on the three dots given in the top right corner of the screen,
- You will see that Instagram will show you different options for you to choose form, tap and choose the “restrict” option from there.
- Instagram will show you an explanation about the restriction feature, tap on restrict account to complete the process.
- Instagram will show you a pop up window that will say that the user is now restricted, tap on the “learn more” option for this or tap on dismiss to go back to the user’s profile page.
How to Unrestricted a user from your Account:
If you have restricted someone in the past and now you want to unrestricted that person so that the person can comment on your posts and you receive their messages again, you can follow the steps given below to do so, which are given for your convenience,
Open the users profile page again.
Now tap on the same three dots that you did before to restrict the person.
Now you will see that the option that previously said “restrict”, now says “unrestricted”.
Tap and choose the unrestricted option to unrestricted the person’s profile.
You are also able to restrict someone from the comments section of your post, Instagram has given you this option over here as well, To restrict someone from the Instagram’s comment section, follow the steps given below,
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For apple users:
- swipe left on the comment of the user that you want to restrict,
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For Android users:
- tap and hold the comment of the user that you want to restrict,
- The options are same for both phone users from here,
- Now tap on the exclamation point, and then select “restrict” option.
You Can also Restrict an Account Through your Settings:
Go to your profile,
Then tap on the three dots menu icon given in the top right corner of the page,
Tap on settings, then go to privacy, then select, restrict accounts.
Next, you will have to enter the name of the account that you want to restrict,
Then tap on restrict which will be given next to the name of the account,
How to Know if Someone Restricted you on Instagram:
Although a restricted user won’t be notified and won’t realize that you have restricted them, it will only be a matter of time until they realize that no one is receiving their sent messages or no one is able to view their comments made on your account.
There are a couple of different ways that you can use to find out if you have been restricted by a user or not,
You should check if you can see the green dot on the user’s profile that shows that the user is active, or check if it says, “active now” or “active 2h ago”. You can also use the other method where you can comment on their latest post and ask from a friend to see if they can see that comment or not, and if your friend is not able to see your comment that you just posted, then you might be restricted by that user.
That being said, you should keep this in mind that there are no actual fool proof ways for you to find out if you have been restricted by someone or not, Instagram allows it’s users to turn off their activity status for everyone and comments get delayed sometimes, before being visible to other users.
This tool is handy when it comes to handling cyber bullies who repeatedly keep on posting negative and offensive comments on your Instagram posts, or people who may send you negative messages or harass you through your messaging section.
How Blocking vs. Restricting Someone Affects their Messaging:
If you block someone, you won’t be able to send or receive messages when it comes to their account, and you both won’t be able to message each other, however, it works differently when it comes to restricting another account,
A restricted person will be able to message you, however Instagram will show you their messages in the Requests section of your messages.
You will not receive any notifications when they message you.
If you view their message, Instagram won’t show them if you viewed their message by not notifying the seen text in the chat and they won’t know if or when you read their messages.
If you find yourself in the group chat with someone you have restricted, Instagram will notify you that you are going to see the restricted person’s messages in the group chat, you can further choose to stay in the group or leave.
If you want to reply to a restricted person’s message, you can do this choosing the unrestrict button given at the bottom of the screen, and you can also select delete to remove the message from your messaging section. Just like the block option you won’t be able to see their active status, so you will no longer see when they were last online and they are also not going to be able to see when you were last online, and also, a person that has been restricted by you will still be able to tag you and mention you in their posts, on the other hand, Instagram will not notify you that you have been tagged by this person.
This ensures that Instagram’s restrict feature does not function with its mentioning feature, and the other person will still be able to mention you in posts or comments.
Conclusion:
We have discussed Instagram’s, “restrict” feature in detail and if you made till the end be sure to use this information wisely, we have also given you complete steps by which you can restrict or unrestrict an Instagram account, and we have also told you why someone would use this feature and when this feature will be the most useful to that person, we hope that you got the information that you were looking for and we wish you the best of luck for your future end favors.