Current:Home > StocksOne Tech Tip: Change these settings on X to limit calls and hide your IP address -ProsperityStream Academy
One Tech Tip: Change these settings on X to limit calls and hide your IP address
View
Date:2025-04-13 05:42:19
Elon Musk’s social media platform X has made audio and video calling capabilities available to all users, not just those with paid accounts. But a privacy issue has emerged from the rollout.
The changes have made it so anyone following you on the platform formerly known as Twitter can call and see your Internet Protocol address by default.
An IP address lists where your phone or computer lives on the internet — it’s how you get messages and load websites. An exposed IP address can make you more vulnerable to dangers from spam to ID theft to revealing your location.
It poses perhaps the most serious risk to people like human-rights activists who create online accounts under pseudonyms to avoid persecution.
If you want to avoid random calls from people you may not know or want to hide your IP address from the X community, here are the mobile app settings you need to change:
Head to your direct message settings
Navigate to the X app on your phone. Click on your profile picture in the upper-left corner, navigate to “Settings and Support,” then hit “Settings and privacy.”
Touch the “Privacy and safety” menu and then scroll to the “Direct messages” subcategory.
This screenshot made on Monday, March 4, 2024, shows settings to change on X if a user wants to avoid random calls from people they may not know or want to hide their IP address from the X community. (AP Photo)
How to limit who can see your IP address
If you want to use X’s new audio and video call functions but limit the exposure of your IP address, scroll down and toggle on the “Enhanced call privacy” option. It’s toggled off by default.
X says this setting will help you avoid revealing your IP address to your contact during a call.
In this same menu, you also have a number of choices to limit who can call you, including an option that allows only people in your address book to reach out.
This screenshot made on Monday, March 4, 2024, shows settings to change on X if a user wants to avoid random calls from people they may not know or want to hide their IP address from the X community. (AP Photo)
How to turn off audio and video calls entirely
In the “Direct messages” menu, toggle off the “Enable audio and video calling” option. This will collapse the previous options and prevent anyone on X from calling you.
Limiting IP address visibility and turning off the calls entirely is only available in the settings if you are using the mobile app version of the former Twitter. For now, at least, there does not appear to be an option to turn off the feature using the web version of X. A representative for X did not immediately return a message for comment on Monday.
___
Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at [email protected] with your questions.
veryGood! (19)
Related
- Highlights from Trump’s interview with Time magazine
- Colombia soccer president facing charges after Copa America arrest in Miami
- Emma Roberts and boyfriend Cody John are engaged: See her ring
- Stock market today: Asian stocks slip, while Australian index tracks Wall St rally to hit record
- North Carolina justices rule for restaurants in COVID
- Bon Appetit! Shop Amazon’s Prime Day Kitchen Deals & Save Up to 67% on Vitamix, KitchenAid & More
- Money from Washington’s landmark climate law will help tribes face seawater rise, global warming
- When job hunting, how do I identify good company culture? Ask HR
- IRS recovers $4.7 billion in back taxes and braces for cuts with Trump and GOP in power
- Arkansas is sued for rejecting petitions on an abortion-rights ballot measure
Ranking
- Trump wants to turn the clock on daylight saving time
- 2024 MLB All-Star Game live updates: Full rosters, how to watch, betting predictions
- Liv Tyler’s 8-Year-Old Daughter Lula Rose Looks So Grown Up in Rare Photos
- Whoopi Goldberg Reveals She Scattered Her Mom's Ashes on Disneyland Ride
- Are Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp down? Meta says most issues resolved after outages
- Joe ‘Jellybean’ Bryant, the father of Kobe Bryant, dies at 69
- Judge temporarily halts state plan to monitor groundwater use in crop-rich California region
- Webcam monitors hundreds of rattlesnakes at a Colorado ‘mega den’ for citizen science
Recommendation
What do we know about the mysterious drones reported flying over New Jersey?
Social Security recipients must update their online accounts. Here's what to know.
The best U.S. hospitals for cancer care, diabetes and other specialties, ranked
Joe ‘Jellybean’ Bryant, the father of Kobe Bryant, dies at 69
Selena Gomez engaged to Benny Blanco after 1 year together: 'Forever begins now'
Organizers expect enough signatures to ask Nebraska voters to repeal private school funding law
California prison on emergency generator power following power outage amid heat wave
Residents evacuated in Nashville, Illinois after dam overtops and floods amid heavy rainfall