WeChat Privacy Protection: Turn off the permission to add friends to your phone number
With the rapid development of mobile Internet and social media, personal privacy is facing unprecedented challenges. As one of the most used instant messaging tools in China and even in the world, WeChat has always been highly concerned about the privacy and security of users. The ability to add friends by phone number is a privacy vulnerability that can be easily abused.
Many WeChat users have encountered such a situation: some strange numbers keep sending requests to add friends, sometimes accompanied by harassing messages. This not only brings confusion to users, but can also lead to more serious privacy leaks and security risks. Luckily, WeChat gives users the option to turn off the permission to add friends to their phone number, allowing users to take active control of their social circles.
An overview of how to add friends on WeChat
Before learning how to turn off the permission to add friends to your phone number, let's briefly review the main ways to add friends provided by WeChat.
Mobile phone number: Users can directly add friends by entering the other person's mobile phone number. This is one of the most common and convenient ways to add it.
WeChat ID: Each WeChat account has a unique WeChat ID, similar to a QQ account, and users can add friends by searching for a WeChat ID.
QQ number: WeChat and QQ account are related to each other, and users can add WeChat friends through QQ number.
Others: In addition to the above three main methods, WeChat also supports multiple ways to add friends by scanning QR codes, mobile phone contacts, and people nearby.
WeChat provides a variety of flexible ways to add friends, which is convenient for users' social needs. But it also gives some criminals an opportunity to harass by obtaining personal information such as users' mobile phone numbers. Therefore, it is important to understand and use your privacy settings wisely and turn off unwanted permissions.
How to turn off the permission to add friends to your phone number
How do I turn off the permission to add friends by phone number in WeChat?
Step: Open the WeChat app on your phone and click "Me" in the lower right corner.
Step: Go to "Settings" - > "Privacy" - > "Friend Permissions".
Step: Click on "Add My Way" in "Friend Permissions".
Step: On the "Add My Way" page, turn off the slide switch after "Phone Number".
After completing the above four steps, you have successfully turned off the method of adding you as a friend by phone number search. It's worth noting that this setting only prevents strangers from finding you by phone number, and existing phone contacts can still add you as a friend through their phone number.
After turning off this permission, you will no longer receive harassing messages from unfamiliar numbers, and you will avoid the risk of your personal mobile phone number being obtained and misused by criminals. From this point of view, this setting is of great significance for protecting personal privacy and maintaining network security.
A mobile phone number is just one of the many ways WeChat offers to add friends. If you want to further enhance your privacy protection, you can adjust other relevant settings.
Additional privacy options
In addition to turning off the permission to add friends on mobile phone numbers, WeChat also provides users with a variety of other privacy setting options that users can customize according to their needs.
WeChat/QQ ID: Similar to mobile phone numbers, users can also choose to turn on or off the permissions added by searching through WeChat ID and QQ ID.
Contacts Friends: This option determines whether your friends in your phone's address book will be able to see your WeChat profile. If it's turned off, even contacts in your address book won't be able to view your profile.
People Nearby: When you turn on this feature, other users can see you in the list of people nearby and add you as a friend. If you don't want to be added by strangers, you can turn this feature off.
Moments: Moments is one of the core functions of WeChat Social Network, users can set who can see your Moments, who can like and comment on your Moments, etc.
Burn after reading: This feature allows you to automatically destroy the pictures, videos, and other content you send after being viewed, so as to avoid being saved and disseminated by others.
Verify when adding me: When this option is enabled, anyone who adds you as a friend will need to be verified by you first, thus effectively preventing harassment.
The above is just one of the main options in the WeChat privacy settings, and users can turn it on or off according to their own situation. Through reasonable settings, it can not only meet the normal social needs, but also protect personal privacy and security to the greatest extent.
The importance of privacy protection
In today's era of big data, personal privacy is facing unprecedented challenges and risks. Once private information is leaked or abused, it may have a serious adverse impact on personal life, work, property, etc. We must take the issue of privacy protection very seriously.
Taking WeChat as an example, as a social application with wide coverage, users' mobile phone numbers, contacts, locations and other private data may be stolen and attacked by criminals. Once this information falls into the wrong hands, users will face harassing phone calls, scams, identity theft, and other security risks.
By making reasonable use of the privacy settings provided by WeChat, such as turning off the permission to add friends on the mobile phone number and enabling the need to add me for verification, users can control the flow of their personal information to a certain extent, thereby minimizing the risk of harassment and fraud.
On the other hand, protecting personal privacy is also conducive to maintaining the healthy and orderly development of the network environment. If unscrupulous individuals are allowed to access and abuse user privacy, cyberspace will become chaotic and people will not be able to communicate and share securely online. On the contrary, if every user can consciously protect their privacy, the entire network environment will become more civilized and orderly.
It can be seen that privacy protection is an important issue that cannot be ignored, both from an individual and an overall perspective. As an app with a wide coverage like WeChat, it should provide users with comprehensive privacy protection features and setting options, so that users can actively control their personal information.
Only when users and platforms work together can personal privacy be effectively protected, and cyberspace can truly become a safe, civilized and orderly environment.
The protection of personal privacy is not only related to the vital interests of everyone, but also related to the healthy development of the entire network environment. As technology continues to advance, the challenges to personal privacy will only increase. We must attach great importance to this issue and take the initiative to take measures to protect our privacy rights.
As one of the largest social platforms in China, WeChat provides users with a variety of privacy protection features, and users should learn to use these functions reasonably to control the flow of personal information. Disabling the permission to add friends on the phone number is only one part of the process, and users can also adjust other settings according to their own needs to minimize the risk of personal information leakage and harassment.
Privacy protection will be an eternal topic. The development of science and technology has brought us convenience, but also brought new challenges to privacy and security. We need to be vigilant at all times while enjoying the dividends of science and technology, and take necessary technical means and legal measures to jointly maintain the security and order of cyberspace. Only in this way can we truly embrace technological progress and have safe and secure personal privacy.