How to know if you’re blocked?
If you are blocked by someone on Facebook, you wouldn’t know immediately, or directly because Facebook does not send you notifications about that. Getting blocked on Facebook means that you will not receive any updates from that account and you won’t be able to contact them through the site.
Now, that being said, if you think you’ve been blocked by someone, here are some of the ways and indicators to know for sure.
1. Can you still tag him/her/them?
If you are blocked by anyone on Facebook, you will not be able to tag him/her/them in photos, posts, videos, and so on. There will not be any error messages when you attempt to tag them, it’s just their name will not appear as an option when you search for it.
Benefit of doubt: Don’t rush to any conclusion by just this one indicator because if you are not able to tag someone on Facebook, it may also mean that their privacy settings don’t allow anyone to tag them in general.
2. Try inviting them to events via Facebook
If you are blocked by someone on Facebook, just like tagging, you will not be able to invite them to a Facebook event (In-Person Event, or Online Event).
Benefit of doubt: Not being able to invite someone on Facebook event may be a result of their privacy settings that disallow sending them any Facebook invites or the particular account may have been deleted or deactivated.
3. Search for their name on Facebook Search
This is the simplest and most direct way to find out if you’ve been blocked by someone on Facebook. Search for the name of the person whom you might think has blocked you using the “Search Facebook” function and see if they appear in the suggestions.
You can try different options like entering their first name, full name, or username. If you still don’t’ see their name, then there’s a high chance that you’ve been blocked
Benefit of doubt: If you’re trying to search for an account and it doesn’t appear by entering their name in the Facebook search, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve blocked you. It may be a possibility that they’ve deleted their Facebook account, or temporarily deactivated it causing their account not to appear in the search.
4. Get confirmation from a mutual friend
The absolute way to know if you are blocked by someone is to get confirmation from a mutual friend of yours. The logic is simple, if the mutual friend is able to see his/or her profile and you can’t, then it’s pretty confirmed that you have been blocked.
Benefit of doubt: If you aren’t able to see someone’s profile, but a mutual friend can, it’s certain that you are being blocked. While you might give the benefit of the doubt that you are probably blocked by accident, but given the fact that in order to block someone, you need to first go to their profile, then click on the “3 dots” icon, select block, and click Confirm, it is highly unlikely that one can be blocked by accident.
5. Check the previous conversations in Messenger
Facebook Messenger can give you a hint if any of your friends have blocked you. To check this, go to the Messenger section, click on See All in the drop-down menu and access the conversation you had with the contact whom you think might have blocked you.
If you’ve been blocked, their profile image won’t load and you’ll see a standard gray icon. You won’t be able to click on their name to look at their profile either.
Also, you will not be able to send them a message as Facebook will tell you that there’s been a temporary error.
Benefit of doubt: Once again, not being able to send someone a message on Facebook Messenger may mean that the person has deleted or deactivated their account. So for a more solid confirmation, you need to check it with any of the other aforementioned methods.
How to see who blocked you on Facebook?
At the time of this writing, there’s no way to get a list of people who’ve blocked you on Facebook. If you suspect that you are blocked by someone and want to be certain about it, get confirmation by testing it with at least two of the methods mentioned above.
Meaning, if you are unable to find someone via Facebook Search, unable to tag them, but a mutual friend can, then it’s almost certain that you are blocked
Another way to know for sure is to contact the said individual via another way and confront them. However, beware that this could lead to awkwardness, or perhaps even being ignored.
So you’re blocked, what’s next?
If you’re sure that you’ve been blocked by a friend on Facebook, you can try contacting them via a mutual friend, talk about it, and find out the reason. But you should do this only if you are prepared to face the worst-case scenarios like:
- Being ignored
- Some out-of-the-world or completely unreasonable explanation
- Conflict heightening
Or you can move on. Live your life, respect their decision and allow them to live theirs too.
Remember, being blocked doesn’t always mean it is you who caused the problem. Chances are, the one who blocked you, found it to be the best way to handle some situation between you and him/her.