White circle around Facebook profile picture

When someone you’ve messaged before suddenly has a blank Facebook profile, you may find yourself wondering,

• Will I ever see this person again?

• Are they going through something difficult?

• Is this just a glitch? 

It can be especially unnerving if the person is strictly an online friend. In this article, I’ll cover each possible reason for finding a blank Facebook profile and, if possible, what to do about it. 

Contents

• 1 Possible Reasons Why You’re Seeing A Blank Facebook Profile
  • 1.1 Reason #1: You’ve Been Blocked 
  • 1.2 Reason #2: Your Friend Deactivated Their Account
  • 1.3 Reason #3: Their Profile Is Private
  • 1.4 Reason #4: Your App Or Browser Is Malfunctioning
  • 1.5 Reason #5: Your Friend Gave Their Profile A Blank-Over
• 2 FAQs
  • 2.1 What does it mean if I click on someone's Facebook profile and its blank?
  • 2.2 Why is my friend's Facebook page blank?
• 3 A Quick Recap: Where’d My Friend Go?

Possible Reasons Why You’re Seeing A Blank Facebook Profile

Reason #1: You’ve Been Blocked 

When someone blocks you on Facebook, you’ll no longer be able to see their social media profile. Any old comments they left on your page will remain, but you won’t see anything they post after they blocked you. This behavior is similar to what you see when someone blocks you on Instagram.

But to determine whether this happened, you’ll have to look for other clues. Here are a few:

Check Your Old Chats

1. Open a one-to-one chat you’ve had with that person.

2. If you can see their profile picture but can’t visit their page by clicking it, you may have been blocked. In this example, the person’s picture has been covered for privacy.

3. If you’ve been blocked, you won’t be able to send them a message.

Ask A Favor

Ask someone to visit the profile in question. If they can see it, you might have been blocked.

Start A Search

1. Enter their name in the search bar.

2. If you’ve been blocked, you either won’t find the person at all or won’t be able to visit their profile by clicking the result.

3. If you see the message, “Sorry, this content isn’t available right now,” the person may have blocked you or deactivated their account.

Oops, My Bad!

To see if you’ve accidentally blocked someone or been blocked is easy and the process is similar to unblocking someone on Instagram:

1. Go to Settings.

2. Select Blocking.

3. See if the person in question is on your Blocking list.

4. If they are, select Unblock next to their name.

Reason #2: Your Friend Deactivated Their Account

If someone has deactivated their account, you won’t see their profile picture in a chat box or in Messenger. Previously, you alsocouldn’t send them messages, but for some reason, this has changed.

If a third party is also unable to see their profile, they probably deactivated their account. 

There are also other signs that an account has been deactivated:

Search Your Friends List

If your friend deactivated their account (but didn’t unfriend you first), they’ll still show up on your Friends list. To search your Friends list:

1. Visit your profile by clicking your name or profile picture.

2. Select Friends.

3. Click the search icon.

4. Type the person’s name.

5. If they show up, see if their profile picture is showing. If it isn’t, that’s a sign they’ve deactivated their account.

6. If you click their name and get this message, they’ve deactivated their account:

Reason #3: Their Profile Is Private

If they prefer, Facebook users can make their profile posts, friends lists, and personal info invisible to everyone but their friends. If they want to be extremely private, they can even make these things visible to only some friends or themselves.

Our video explains all of the privacy options on Facebook: 

If you can visit a person’s profile page but see nothing besides their profile picture, their account is most likely private. 

Reason #4: Your App Or Browser Is Malfunctioning

It’s possible that your Facebook app or browser is malfunctioning. 

If you’re using the Facebook app, try visiting the person’s page through a browser. If you’re able to see their page through the browser, update your app and see if that fixes the problem. 

If you’re on a desktop or laptop computer, try using a different browser. If this works, try updating the browser that wasn’t working properly. 

Reason #5: Your Friend Gave Their Profile A Blank-Over

For whatever reason, your friend may have decided to anonymize their profile. Reasons may include having a high-profile job or concerns over online safety. By choosing a blank profile picture and posting no visible content, they can enjoy Facebook without worrying about snoops. 

Because people can choose different privacy settings, this possibility overlaps with Reason #3.

FAQs

A Quick Recap: Where’d My Friend Go?

If you encounter a blank Facebook profile:

• To tell if an account has blocked you or been deactivated, open a recent chat with the person. 

If you were blocked, you’ll be able to see their profile picture but won’t be able to send them messages. If they’ve deactivated their account, the reverse will be true.

• The person may have set their account to private or manually anonymized their profile. You can message private accounts (that haven’t blocked you).

• Your Facebook app or browser may be out of date.

Got any questions? Please let me know in the comments!

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