Here’s how to protect your Instagram account from stalkers

Instagram is one of the most popular social media apps among the younger generation these days. The app’s popularity is fueled with the fact that users can share images of everything and anything happening in their lives with their friends, family and followers. Social media platforms come with both pros and cons. One of the pros is that it lets us, users, know what’s happening all around the world just by sitting at home.

While social media apps can help us a lot in our day to day life, it can be also be extremely harmful. One of the cons that social media brings with it is “stalkers”. Incidents of cyber bullying, cyber crime, online stalking are rising with every passing day in the country. Taking that into consideration, today, we will take a look at how you can prevent yourself from becoming a victim of cyber stalking on Instagram.

Make your account private

The first thing to do when you are afraid of people stalking you online is changing the privacy setting. Turning your Instagram account from ‘Public’ to ‘Private’. Enabling this feature will make your profile private, meaning people who don’t follow you won’t be able to see your personal pictures that your put out on Instagram.

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By enabling this feature Instagram will notify you every time someone sends a follow request. It’s up to you whether you wish to accept of decline the request. Notably, keeping the profile public means everyone and anyone using Instagram will be able to see photos you upload on the platform.

To make Instgram profile private you can these simple steps

* Open Instagram app on your smartphone.

* Go to your ‘Profile’, by tapping on the icon with your display picture placed on the lower-right corner.

* Tap on the hamburger menu, located on the top right corner.

* Click the ‘Settings’ tab located at the bottom.

* Tap on the ‘Privacy and Security’ tab.

* Select the ‘Account Privacy’ tab.

* Now, toggle the ‘Private Account’ setting to ‘on’.

After turning this setting on, only existing followers and the new followers will be able to see posts and stories that you post.

Blocking select followers

If one of your followers starts annoying or stalking you and this is making you feel extremely uncomfortable, simply block them so that they can’t see any of your activities anymore. This is also restrict them to find you on the platform.

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To block users just follow these steps

* Open Instagram app on your smartphone.

* Search for the account that you want to block.

* On Android, tap on the three vertical dots in the top right corner. On iOS, tap on the three horizontal dots next to their name.

* Then select the ‘Block’ option.

After this, it would be as if you have left the platform for them without losing any of your existing followers, in case that affects you.

Prevent third-party apps from accessing data

Multiple third-party apps ask users access to their Instagram account, for example, apps that schedule posts or send out automatic replies. So, when you grant access to your data to such apps, they get  access to your Instagram accounts. This data can then be stolen or sold.

To revoke access to such third-party apps you are required to use the web interface instead of the app. In the web interface follow these steps:

* After logging in, click on the account option on the upper-right corner and press settings.

* Select the ‘Authorised Apps’ option.

* You will now see a number of apps that have access to your Instagram account.

* Revoke access from the apps that you feel are not necessary.