Profiles and posts on the web

What reaches the web

Display name, username, profile picture and public posts. Never your e-mail, your number, your location or your conversations. What the site shows is what a signed-out user sees inside the app — not one field more.

The switch

Settings › Privacy › “show my profile on the web”. Turn it off and your `/u/username` answers 404 — not a “this profile is private” page, because a page that says that has already confirmed the handle exists.

Posts, separately from the profile

A post reaches the web when either it was admitted to Explore or its author is on the web. So closing your profile does not pull a post out of Explore; that is a separate decision and it is yours (delete the post, or take it out of Explore).

Why it is open at all

Because closing it helps nobody. A social network with no page outside itself exists only for people who already installed it. An open page costs no privacy: what is on it was already public.

If there is a page you want gone

The switch above removes the profile. For one post, delete it. If a page is not yours and has to come down — your photograph in somebody else’s post, anything that should not be there — report it from that page: the report goes to a moderation queue and any action taken carries a reason and a record.

Common questions about this

• Why is my profile in Google?+

  Because public profiles are open on the web, like Instagram. One switch in privacy settings turns it off.

• How long until my page is gone?+

  The page answers 404 within minutes. Removing it from Google’s results is Google’s own schedule, usually a few days.

• Is my e-mail or phone number on the site?+

  No. Never.

• Are my conversations on the web?+

  No. Messages stay inside the app, between two accounts.