The growing popularity of social media is both a boon and bane to the netizens. While it has opened up new digital opportunities for expression unlike ever before, it has also made a low-key life impossible.
Roughly five years ago, avoiding someone you didn’t like or find annoying on social media was easy as pie. You could simply block them online, and when asked offline, tell them you had stopped using the platform. But today, nobody would believe you if you attempt to use such an excuse.
And if you’re a creator and need to keep an open profile, the control of who can access your content doesn’t lie in your own hands.
To keep such issues in check, all platforms are launching narrow privacy and blocking features. One such feature on Instagram is of blocking someone from viewing your stories.
But what if you block or hide your story on your profile? Will they still see your highlights? Or do highlights work differently?
If these questions have been troubling you, fret not.
We’re here to your rescue!
Stick with us till the end to find all the answers on “Can you see highlight if you are blocked from stories”, “can you block someone from seeing your Instagram highlights” and “if you block someone from your story can they see your highlights”.
Stories and Highlights on Instagram: How do They Work?
How would you define a story? An account of events (real or imaginary) narrated in a manner that entertains the readers/listeners/viewers: that’s how Google defines stories. On Instagram, the meaning of stories is more or less the same as well.
When Instagram first launched stories, it was intended to provide users with a space to add content that disappears over time (24 hours to be exact). However, the creators of the platform used this feature to take their creativity to a whole other level. Soon, users wanted to have a more permanent spot for their stories, and thus, Highlights were introduced.
The Highlights section on Instagram is placed right at the top of your post feed on your profile in such a manner that anyone who visits your profile would see them first.
Moreover, just so that you don’t need to stuff a single highlight with every story you want to keep permanently visible, Instagram offers you the opportunity to add as many separate highlights as you want.
So, if you’re an avid reader, you can make a separate Books highlight to collect all your reading stories in one place. As a fashion influencer, you can make separate highlights for your OOTD, Summer favorites, Ethnic, Modern, and Vintage looks. After all, isn’t diversity what we truly seek in this age and time?
Furthermore, you can also assign these highlights separate, creative names and wallpapers by using pictures that aren’t even a part of the collection. Just pick any random picture from your phone’s gallery that you like and make it the cover of your highlight. Easy-peasy!
Can You See Highlights if You Are Blocked from Stories?
Now that we’ve talked at length about how stories and highlights work on Instagram, let’s move on to explore story blocking.
What is story blocking?
Well, it’s a setting you can use to hide your stories from someone without removing them from your followers’ list or blocking them completely. This feature is more useful for Instagrammers with a public account.
Because people who don’t even follow them can access their content, it can be challenging for them to prevent some particular users from viewing their stories.
To help these public account owners, Instagram has launched the story blocking feature.
But what’s the validity period for this setting? If you’ve blocked someone from viewing your stories but later store them as highlights on your profile, will they still be banned from seeing them?
Yes, they will be. From the minute you block someone from your stories, they’ll be banned from viewing any highlights you create thereafter. In simpler words, if someone has been blocked from seeing your stories, they wouldn’t be able to see them no matter what. Unless, of course, they use a different account to do so.
Also Read: