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Followers with hidden or limited profiles

SteveCS

SteveCS

Nov 19, 2014
10,939
22,194
Hampshire, UK
#1
Hi,

I can just about understand in a general sense why someone might want to limit who can see their full profile information. But I also noticed that followers can hide their profiles from those they follow. For example, there are 2 accounts showing as following me but I am unable to see any details from the user profile. I just see this error message:
upload_2022-2-7_17-14-38.png

I think whose followed have some expectation of being able to see who (or what) is 'following' them. Alternatively, I think that anyone choosing to follow someone else should have no expectation of complete anonymity from those they choose to follow.

Would it be possible to allow visiblity of follower profiles to those being followed, regardless of any other general privacy choices those accounts have made elsewhere?

Many thanks for listening.
 

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#2
I’m not seeing the correlation. If I wanna keep my profile as limited as possible and I want to follow you, what does that have to do with you knowing more about me than I want anyone to know?
 
#4
Gorn said:
I’m not seeing the correlation. If I wanna keep my profile as limited as possible and I want to follow you, what does that have to do with you knowing more about me than I want anyone to know?
Click to expand...

Getting notified of someone's activity whilst deliberately lurking in the shadows? Sounds a bit like stalking, don't you think?
 
#5
SteveCS said:
Getting notified of someone's activity whilst deliberately lurking in the shadows? Sounds a bit like stalking, don't you think?
Click to expand...
I don't think there's a correlation. You have the option of hiding your profile. You also have the option of following people. One doesn't relate to the other from a software standpoint.

There are reasons people might not want others to obsess over what they've posted here. If you haven't been involved with someone who turned out to be of questionable character here (or elsewhere) you might not understand those reasons. But the developers created that option for a reason. Stalkers stalk and hiding your profile is not a "sign" of stalking. Having someone question why they can't obsess over your every move here is more suspicious, IMO.

Not saying you're doing that, but just saying how that looks from the opposite perspective. There are two sides to every story.
 
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#7
SteveCS said:
Getting notified of someone's activity whilst deliberately lurking in the shadows? Sounds a bit like stalking, don't you think?
Click to expand...
Not really because you are openly displaying that you're following that person's posts. Stalkers lurk in the shadows. They don't say, "Hey! I'm stalking you."

But a good option would be to disallow followers, if that's concerning. I don't see that option in the software here.
 
#8
SteveCS said:
Getting notified of someone's activity whilst deliberately lurking in the shadows? Sounds a bit like stalking, don't you think?
Click to expand...
Stalking is a deliberate invasion of privacy of someone who doesn’t want their privacy violated. You’re choosing to publish content on an open forum visible to anyone. I follow Bill Nye on instagram. He doesn’t know who I am. I’m not stalking him.
 
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#9
I don't think that most people who have their profiles hidden even think about that when they decide to follow someone. I don't follow anyone, so it's not a concern I have, although I do hide my profile. Frankly I'm a little sick of having to defend that.

As one of a small handful of women who posts here, it's obvious why more do not.
 
#10
LBS-bass said:
...
Having someone question why they can't obsess over your every move here is more suspicious, IMO.

Not saying you're doing that, but just saying how that looks from the opposite perspective. There are two sides to every story.
Click to expand...

If a few people think that what I write here is worth reading to the point of 'subscription' then that's great, and I'm not trying to stop that. But I think that should come with a reciprocal gesture of opening up at least some of your profile to those you follow.
 
#14
SteveCS said:
Agree, you should not have to defend that in any way. I hope I'm not one of those you feel that way towards. Like I said, if I'm off the mark then I withdraw the suggestion.
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No, I don't feel that way about you at all, you've always been straight up and a great source of information here, which is probably why people want to follow you. It's just that it seems every week or so there is a post from someone who wants people to offer up information about themselves as a condition of participation here, which is usually in the interest of knowing the background of people who offer information. But you have to have an open profile to do that and with that comes access to every post you've ever made. I understand why people feel as they do, but it's the internet and far from a perfect world.
 
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