What Happens When You Block Someone on Facebook?
Published Aug. 7 2022, 3:43 p.m. ET
There are all sorts of ways to shut down interactions with someone on social media these days, but what happens when you block someone on Facebook, specifically?
Well, it goes a few steps beyond unfriending. They won’t get a notification that they’ve been blocked, but they also won’t be able to interact with you or friend you on Facebook. Read on…
Blocking someone on Facebook means they won’t be able to see your posts, tag you, or converse with you on Facebook.
In its Help Center, Facebook outlines what happens when you block a Facebook profile: “When you block a profile, that profile won’t be able to see posts from the profile you blocked it from; tag the profile you blocked it from in posts, comments, or photos; invite the profile you blocked it from to events or groups; start a conversation with the profile you blocked it from; [or] add the profile that you blocked it from as a friend.”
Facebook notes that if you have more than one Facebook profile, you’ll need to block that profile from your other profiles, too (though doing so may reveal that those other profiles belong to you).
Also, if you’re friends with the profile you’re blocking, you’ll unfriend that profile by blocking it, but blocking a profile on one of your own profiles doesn’t block or unfriend that profile on all your other profiles automatically.
If you later choose to unblock a former Facebook friend, you’ll have to send a new friend request if you want to resume your Facebook friendship.
You still might come across content from the blocked profile.
In a separate help webpage, Facebook explains that blocking a Facebook profile prevents many interactions with that account but doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll never see content from that profile.
For example, you’ll still be able to see your Facebook message history with that profile, you might see photos of the blocked profile in mutual friends’ posts, you’ll be able to see groups the blocked profile has created or joined, and you’ll be able to see events to which you and the block profile have been invited.
It’s easy to block someone — or, alternatively, to “take a break” from their updates.
To block a profile, Facebook says to switch to the profile you want to use, navigate to Settings & Privacy, click Settings, click Blocking, enter the name of the profile you want to block, and then click Block. Or, you can navigate to the profile you want to block, tap the “…” button below their profile photo, and then select Block.
There is another, less severe option, however: You could also choose to “take a break” from a Facebook profile instead of blocking them. When you do this, you’ll have the options of not seeing posts from that profile in your feed, hiding your posts from that profile’s feed, and editing your past posts with that profile. To take a break from a profile, simply go facebook.com/take_a_break.