TikTok’s various privacy settings are designed to protect users and ensure that they can keep their content and profile information safe from people who they don’t know or who they don’t want to access their account.
The Private setting boasts a number of features, but one of those is to hide the likes that a user shares on videos that they watch and come across.
The reason for hiding these likes will depend on the user. For some, it’s strategic – allowing them to interact with content so that it appears on their ‘For You’ feed, without anyone knowing. This is particularly beneficial to businesses and creators who want to keep an eye on competitor content without drawing attention to themselves. It can also be a personal choice to hide likes, or a plan to keep you follower base as open and diverse as possible by not influencing followers on what you like as a creator.
Whatever the reason though, the question remains – is it possible to see a user’s likes on TikTok if their account is private?
The short (and official) answer to this is no. TikTok has various blocks in place which are designed to protect the identity and information of its private users.
Having said that, not everything can be hidden.
What You Can Learn From Private Likes
Any like on TikTok, private or otherwise, impacts the algorithm and the kind of content that a user sees.
So, if you happen to see lots of reposts which focus on a specific industry or style of content, you can be fairly confident on the type of content that they are liking and interacting with.
This is, in essence, a game of deduction and guesswork – though it can help you to learn more about even the most private of TikTok users and account holders.
Can You See Likes if You Follow Them?
Another thing to do if an account is set to private is to follow them – thereby opening their profile to more insight.
Of course, they will need to approve you as a follower and grant you permission to their TikTok community, but provided they do so then you will likely find that you can learn more about what they like and interact with fairly easily.
In short, while TikTok does not provide quick and easy access to the like activity of private accounts, there are ways of learning more about what they interact with and watch on TikTok. We hope this helps you to get to know your community a little more, and make content that suits them!
