On Facebook and soon Instagram, other users can see when you are online through a green dot on your profile picture. We explain how you can prevent this.
As our cooperation partner checked4you reports, Instagram is now also adopting what Facebook has been doing for some time: small green dots are displayed on the profile picture for some users. They mean that the user is currently online in the corresponding social network. This is called activity status on Facebook and Insta.
If no dot is visible, there can be three reasons:
- The user is not online at the moment,
- the user does not display when he is online or
- you don't let it show when you're online. Because if you turn off your activity status, you will no longer see that of others either.
Here's how to turn your activity status on and off on Facebook and Instagram:
Instagram app
In the Instagram app, tap on the three dots at the top right of your profile (on Android) and this will take you to the settings.

Now you have to scroll down a little until you see the “Activity status” entry. You tap that.

Here you can now set whether you want to be visible to others when you visit Instagram or not.

In the Facebook app, tap the burger menu at the top right (on Android; on iOS it's a gear at the bottom) to go to the app's settings.

Scroll down a bit, open “Settings and Privacy” and then “Settings”.

Scroll down again and tap “Activity Status”.

Here you can now decide whether other Facebook users should see when you are online.

And if you use Facebook on a PC, you can turn off your activity status in the chat window at the bottom right:

Then click on “Turn off activity status”:

Here you can choose between three options:

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