Privacy controls, one by one

The account switch

Private accounts are the blunt instrument, and they are worth understanding precisely. While the account is private, following you requires your approval, and your posts are visible only to approved followers. This applies everywhere the post could otherwise surface — it is filtered out of other people's recommendations too, not only hidden on your profile.

Going public asks a second question: whether to accept the follow requests waiting at that moment. Saying no leaves them pending, which is a reasonable thing to want.

The per-surface switches

Under Settings → Privacy, four parts of a profile can be shown or hidden independently of whether the account itself is private.

• ReTops — whether the reTops you have made are listed on your profile.
• Followers and following — whether either list can be opened by someone else.
• Liked videos — whether the posts you liked are visible.
• Saved posts — whether your saved collections are visible.

Each is a separate decision. Hiding your liked videos does not hide anything else, and none of them affect whether a post of yours can be found.

Blocking, and what it is not

Blocking someone removes the relationship in both directions and stops them reaching you. It is not the same as hiding an individual post from your feed — for that, the not-interested action on a post is the right tool, and it feeds back into what gets recommended.

Ads and your consent

If you are in the EEA or the UK you were asked, on first launch, what you consent to for advertising. That choice is not final: Settings → Privacy has an Ad Privacy entry that reopens the same form, so consent can be withdrawn as easily as it was given. Outside those regions the entry is not shown, because there is no such requirement to satisfy.