Frequently Asked Question #185

When someone adds you to their Friends list, their Friends page shows your public entries. If you add them to your Friends list, they can see your protected entries (Friends-Only always and any Custom Friends Groups you set) too. Although you cannot remove yourself from another user's Friends list, you can prevent their username from displaying in your own Friend of list or hide the entire list.

If you suspect that the user who friended you may be a bot, you can report them to the Abuse Prevention team.

Hiding a Username From Your Friend Of list: You can hide a username from your Friend Of list by banning that user from your journal. This will automatically hide their username from your Friend of list on your Profile and in a downloadable client; however, your username will still appear in the Friends list on their Profile. You can also ban a community to hide it from your Member Of list.

Hiding Your Entire Friend Of list: Hide your entire Friend of and Member of list from other people by unchecking the "Friend of list" option on the Edit Profile page. When you view your Profile, you will still see these lists, but they will be hidden from other users.

Hiding who lists you as a friend with either method listed above does not make that information entirely inaccessible. Off-site tools may have access to Friends lists; Plus users and Paid users can search the Directory to see your Friends and Friend of lists.