Privacy & Visibility Levels

Five levels of privacy

Every poem on Stanza has its own audience. You pick it in the composer's Settings, and you can change it after publishing.

Public

Anyone can see it, including people without a Stanza account. It can appear on Explore, Trending and Discover, and in search. Choose this when you want your work to travel.

Followers

Only people who follow you. The poem appears in their Following tab and For You feed. If your profile requires follow approval, only followers you've approved can see it.

Friends

Only your friends: followers you follow back. It's a smaller, reciprocal audience for work you'd share with people you know.

Groups

Only members of one Inner Circle. When you choose Groups, you also pick the circle. This is ideal for workshop drafts and circle prompts.

Private (Only me)

Only you. Useful for personal pieces, works in progress, or archiving old work while keeping it out of sight.

What privacy affects

• Who can open the poem. Privacy is enforced by Stanza's servers, not just hidden in the app. A direct link doesn't get anyone past it.
• Where it can appear. A poem only shows up in feeds, search, lists, activity and notifications for people who are allowed to open it.
• Lists and saves. If you narrow a poem's audience later, it stops showing to people outside the new audience, including in lists and in other people's Saved pages.

Changing privacy later

Open the poem, choose Edit, and change its privacy in Settings. Privacy stays editable after your poem settles, unlike the title and text.

Your default

Tired of picking the same level every time? Set a default and new poems will start with it. On the web, go to Settings › Account › Content Defaults. In the app, go to Settings › Privacy. Your default can be Public, Followers, Friends or Private. Groups can't be a default, because a circle post needs a named circle. See "Default Visibility for New Poems and Lists".