People

Profiles

Everyone has a profile at /@handle. It shows the person's display name, avatar, header image, bio, links, pronouns and location, plus their counts of posts, followers and following. Tabs lead to their posts, followers, following, public lists, public documents and blog.

A Follows you badge appears on the profile of anyone who follows you.

Edit your own profile with Edit profile, or in Settings → Profile. See Settings for what you can change.

Following someone

Open the person's profile and choose Follow.

If their account is public, you follow them straight away and the button changes to Following.
If their account is private, the button reads Request to follow. Your request waits for their approval, and the button shows Requested until they decide.

Choose the button again to unfollow or to withdraw a request.

Messages from people you follow appear in the Following tab on Home. See Messages for how the timeline works.

Following hashtags

Open a hashtag's page, for example /tags/music, and choose Follow. Public messages with that hashtag then appear in your Following tab.

Private accounts

Turn on Private account in Settings → Privacy & Safety. Then:

Only approved followers see your bio and posts.
New followers have to send a follow request.
Your existing followers stay.

Each request sends you a notification, and the Dashboard shows how many are waiting. Switching back to public doesn't expose posts you shared with followers only, because visibility is set on each message.

Finding people

Search has a People tab that matches handles and display names.
Explore shows new people and trending tags.
The Who to follow widget on Home suggests accounts. Add or remove it in Settings → Widgets.

To keep yourself out of suggestions and people search, turn off Suggest my account to others and show me in people search in Settings → Privacy & Safety.

Who can contact you

Also in Privacy & Safety:

Who can message you controls direct messages. See Direct messages.
Who can mention you is Anyone, People I follow, or Nobody.

Blocking and muting

The More actions (…) menu on a profile has Mute, Block and Report. See Reporting & safety.

Direct messages: private conversations.
Notifications: follow and follow-request notifications.