Why do I have followers and how do I disable them?

I am not an author, and I value my privacy. Who decided that just anyone should be able to follow anyone else on envato and how do we disable this very stupid feature?

If it cannot be disabled, I will be deactivating my account.

Hi Jim. The only things visible by following an account are new items that user publishes on Envato’s marketplaces - if you aren’t an author, then no details of your account activity will be visible to any other users.

If you have people following your account, it’s likely that they are simply bulk-following accounts via our API - while I’m not aware of any way to disable the Following feature for a customer-only account, there’s no harm done here.

You will always have the option of deactivating your account via our Help team - however, if you decide to do that, bear in mind that you’d lose access any items you’ve purchased on that account.

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Since I am not an author, and have never published anything on any envato site, why does the API allow seeing or following me at all? Seems like a rushed coding job that needs to be revisited.

For authors on envato, I can see the benefit. Although, one might think that those authors would already have the ability to send out notifications to everyone that has purchased items from them in the past. Surely some people will want to opt out of that spam, but that should be simple enough to do.

I get enough of people IRL, and I sure as hell don’t want them stalking me online.

Hi @jim_hubbard,

Please refrain from calling out authors. If you feel they are breaking the rules, consider contacting Envato Help and Support.

Thanks,
Luca

I wasn’t aware that I called out an author. Clicking the name of the person following me brings up NOTHING. If they were an author, or even a regular user, shouldn’t their name/link take you to something about them?

Heya Jim!

What you saw when you clicked their name was as much as they can see from you - basically, nothing except your username, badges, profile picture, and join date (which is all public information anyway since you’ve posted multiple comments on items), so I hope you will not worry too much about this.

It is certainly odd that you have a random follower, and they don’t really fit the signs of a bot. It’s possible they found you from an item’s comments section, for example, and mistakenly clicked Follow. They may not even know English and were just clicking random buttons! :stuck_out_tongue:

Envato has always been focused around the idea of community, so there are basic, public profiles for all users. These profiles do not give access to any of your activity, personal information, or purchases. They may show your country of residence, but you can easily disable this from your settings.

Following a user doesn’t give you access to any extra information, either. They still don’t get a list of your comments, or purchases, or activity. This is likely why following is not restricted.

Hope that helps give you some clarity! :slight_smile:
Bailey

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Thanks for the clarification. At first I thought it was like that awful Google+ following feature. That feature is why I never used Google+.

It’s also how work Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in and any other social platform.

With those platforms you know what you’re getting into. That’s also why I don’t use them.

I have a Facebook account that I use only for logins. Otherwise I am pretty much radio silent.

In my experience, online social networks eat up more time and energy than they are worth. My time is precious to me and I do not wish to waste it on a “social network”.

Jim

That’s not going to happen, privacy is highly valued and that will always be a certainty here. :slight_smile:

That’s a well known fact, but you can rest assured, Envato profiles don’t work and will never work like a social network. Your personal information is not publicly visible unless you deliberately post it on your profile. As @baileyherbert said, nothing except your username, badge, profile picture and join date is shown.

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