Can you hide your followers or following list on X (Twitter)?

No. X's Following FAQs ask "Can I restrict who follows me, or sees my updates?" and give one answer: "Yes. You can protect your posts." We looked through X's help pages, its developer docs and the text of its English app for an option to hide either list, or your counts, and found none.

X does let you hide some other things. Paying subscribers could hide their blue checkmark from 1 August 2023. In April 2024 X told them the option was "going away soon", and today's Premium page lists no option to hide it. X's app has options called "Hide your ID verified label" and "Hide your Creator Subscriptions". Nothing like them exists for followers or following.

X doesn't say. Protecting your posts means "anyone who wants to follow you must submit a request for your approval. Only followers you approve can see your protected posts". X's help speaks of posts. Neither its help pages, its developer docs nor its app text say whether someone signed in who doesn't follow you can open a protected account's Followers or Following list.

Your profile stays public either way. X says: "Most of the profile information you provide us is always public, like your biography, location, website, and picture." And people who already follow you keep their access: "Accounts that began following you before you protected your posts will still be able to view and interact with your protected posts unless you block them." The steps are in how to make your X account private.

We tried logged out on 11 October 2026. The Followers and Following pages of @NASA, @BarackObama and a protected account all redirected to X's sign-in screen, headed "See what's happening". Their profiles still opened, with the counts: 499.6K Following and 118.8M Followers for @BarackObama.

X's blocking page doesn't say whether blocking hides your lists. It says that if your posts are public, "accounts you have blocked can see your posts", and its list of what blocked accounts can't do doesn't mention your Followers or Following lists.

Even someone who never opens your lists can see some of your follows. On a profile, X shows "Followed by" a few names "and" a number of "others you follow". When none of the accounts you follow follows that profile, X's app says "Not followed by anyone you're following". So anyone who follows you may see your name on the profiles of accounts you follow.

Profiles also have a "Followers you know" tab, which X doesn't define, and a "Verified Followers" tab, first reported on 29 August 2023. X's app has no "mutuals" label: it says "You follow each other", and X's FAQ says "Following on X isn't mutual."

Each of these changes who ends up on your lists:

• Read accounts without following them. Create a List and turn on Private before you add anyone: X's app says "When you make a List private, only you can see it." A List's timeline shows "a stream of posts from only the accounts on that List", and none of them appears in your Following list.
• Unfollow quietly. X's FAQ says: "X does not send a notification when you unfollow someone."
• Remove followers you don't want, without blocking them. X's confirmation says the account "won't be notified by X": how to remove a follower on X.
• Protect your posts, so that each new follower needs your approval.

X is not the only network that keeps follows visible, but some let you hide them:

Over the years Twitter, now X, added more ways to see who follows whom, and changed what verified accounts show:

Your dashboard lists your followers, the accounts you follow, who follows you back and who left. It's behind your sign-in, and we don't publish any of it. We read your lists with our own access and never post as you: the only thing we write on X is a DM from @unfollowmonkey to you.

We can't read a private account's followers, so while your posts are protected we can't check yours. More in how to make your X account private.