How to Stop Harassment on Facebook

Dealing with harassment on Facebook can feel exhausting and isolating, but you have the power to shut it down. This guide walks you through the clear, actionable steps you can take right now to protect your account, report abusive behavior, and regain control of your online space. We’ll cover everything from simple blocking and privacy adjustments to official reporting and evidence collection.

Recognizing Harassment on Facebook

Before you can take action, it’s helpful to identify exactly what kind of behavior crosses the line. Harassment isn't just one thing, it can take many forms. Facebook’s Community Standards prohibit bullying and harassment, defining it as content that purposefully targets private individuals to degrade or shame them.

Here’s what this can look like in practice:

• Bullying and Abusive Language: This includes insults, threats, name-calling, and posts intended to humiliate you. It’s not about a simple disagreement, it’s about a consistent pattern of hurtful communication.
• Unwanted Contact: Repeatedly receiving messages, friend requests, or comments from someone you've asked to stop is a form of harassment. If someone won't take no for an answer, you have options.
• Stalking: This involves monitoring your online activity excessively, sharing your location without consent, or using information from your profile to intimidate you in your offline life.
• Impersonation: Someone creating a fake profile pretending to be you, your friend, or a public figure to spread false information or cause harm is a serious violation.
• Hate Speech: Attacks based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or other protected characteristics are strictly against Facebook's rules.
• Sharing Private Information (Doxing): Posting someone’s personal information, like their home address or phone number, without their permission is a severe breach of privacy and a form of intimidation.

If you’re experiencing any of this, you don’t have to put up with it. The tools and steps below will help you fight back.

Immediate Actions for Quick Relief

When you're facing harassment, your first priority is to create a safe space for yourself immediately. Facebook provides several tools that let you control who can interact with you. Here are the fastest ways to stop unwanted contact.

Unfriend and Unfollow

The simplest first step is to cut the initial connection. Unfriending someone removes them from your friend list, and they’ll have to send you a new request to reconnect. Unfollowing them means you'll no longer see their posts in your News Feed, but you’ll remain friends. Unfriending is the stronger option for stopping harassment.

• To unfriend someone, go to their profile, click the "Friends" button, and select "Unfriend."

Restrict an Account

The "Restrict" feature is a more subtle alternative to blocking. When you restrict someone, they are moved to your Restricted List. This means:

• They will only see posts you make public, not content shared with "Friends."
• They won't be able to see when you're online or if you've read their messages.
• Comments they leave on your posts will only be visible to them and you, unless you approve the comment.

This is a great option if blocking a family member or coworker might create unwanted offline drama. They won’t be notified that you've restricted them. To do this, go to their profile, click the friends icon, and select "Edit Friend List" >, "Restricted."

Block the User

Blocking is the most definitive way to stop all interaction with another user. When you block someone, they will not be able to:

• See your profile or anything you post.
• Tag you in posts, comments, or photos.
• Add you as a friend.
• Invite you to events or groups.
• Message you.

How to block someone:

1. Go to the profile of the person you want to block.
2. Click the three dots (...) menu button next to their profile picture.
3. Select "Block" and confirm your choice.

Blocking is completely invisible, the user is not notified. From their perspective, your profile simply disappears.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Reporting Harassment

Blocking a user stops them from contacting you, but it doesn't stop their behavior on the platform. Reporting the harassment to Facebook can lead to a warning, suspension, or permanent ban of the user's account. Always report content that violates Facebook's Community Standards.

How to Report a Profile, Post, Comment, or Message

The reporting process is similar across different types of content.

To report a profile (e.g., for impersonation or being fake):

1. Go to the profile you want to report.
2. Click the three dots (...) below the cover photo.
3. Select "Find support or report profile."
4. Follow the on-screen prompts. Choose the reason that best fits the situation, such as "Pretending to Be Someone" or "Harassment."

To report a specific post, comment, or photo:

1. Click the three dots (...) next to the specific piece of content.
2. Select "Find support or report post/comment."
3. Choose what the content violates - for example, "Harassment" or "Hate Speech."
4. Facebook will guide you through more specific questions to help its review team understand the context.

To report a message:

1. Open the conversation in Messenger.
2. Click on the person's name at the top.
3. Scroll down and select "Something's Wrong."
4. Choose a category like "Harassment" or "Hate Speech" and follow the prompts. You can select specific messages to include in your report.

After you submit a report, Facebook’s safety team will review it against their policies. You will receive a notification in your Support Inbox with their decision.

Proactive Privacy Settings to Prevent Future Harassment

The best way to deal with harassment is to make yourself a harder target. Tightening your privacy settings can prevent unwanted attention from ever starting.

Control Your Audience for Each Post

You don't have to share everything with the public. Before you post, use the audience selector tool (it's right below your name in the post-creation box) to choose who sees your content. Options typically include:

• Public: Anyone on or off Facebook can see it.
• Friends: Only your Facebook friends see it.
• Friends except...: Lets you hide a post from specific people.
• Specific friends: Only a select group of friends can see it.

Manage Who Can Find and Contact You

Visit your "Settings & Privacy" >, "Settings" >, "Privacy." Here, you can control:

• Who can send you friend requests? Change this from "Everyone" to "Friends of friends" to reduce requests from complete strangers.
• Who can look you up using your email or phone number? Limiting this to "Friends" or "Only me" can prevent someone from finding your profile with just one piece of contact information.
• Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile? Turning this off makes it harder for people to find you via a Google search.

Review and Approve Tags

Harassers can sometimes tag you in malicious posts or photos. You can take back control of this by enabling tag review.

Go to "Settings & Privacy" >, "Settings" >, "Profile and Tagging."

Under the "Reviewing" section, you'll find two important settings:

• Review posts you're tagged in before the post appears on your profile? Turn this on.
• Review tags people add to your posts before the tags appear on Facebook? Turn this on.

With these enabled, you’ll receive a notification whenever you’re tagged, and the post won't appear on your timeline unless you manually approve it.

Document Everything and Know When to Escalate

For more severe cases of harassment, especially those involving direct threats or stalking, it’s important to keep a record and seek outside help. Taking action on Facebook is step one, but it doesn't have to be the last step.

Take Screenshots

Always take screenshots of harassing posts, comments, and messages. If the harasser deletes the content, Facebook's review team may not be able to act on your report. A screenshot serves as your evidence. Be sure the screenshot includes the person's name, profile picture, the content itself, and a timestamp if possible.

Know When to Contact Law Enforcement

Online harassment can sometimes escalate to a point where it becomes a legal issue. Scenarios where you should consider involving the police include:

• Direct threats of physical violence against you or your family.
• Credible threats of stalking.
• If the user has published your private information (like your home address) with intent to cause harm.
• If you believe a child is in danger.

Provide law enforcement with your documented evidence, including screenshots and the user's profile information. They will be able to best decide how to proceed.

Final Thoughts

Dealing with harassment online is incredibly stressful, but knowing these tools and strategies can help you protect yourself and stand up against abuse. By adjusting your privacy settings, blocking bad actors, and reporting violations, you can create a safer and more positive experience on Facebook.

While these tools help manage individual bad actors, maintaining a healthy online community takes consistent effort, especially for creators and brands sifting through endless notifications. We designed the unified inbox in Postbase to bring all your comments and DMs from every platform into one clean space. This makes it easier to spot and address harassment quickly while freeing you up to focus on engaging with your supportive followers.