About Member Privacy Settings

With the Member Privacy Settings API you can override the default privacy status of site members' profiles. For example, if the default status is private, you can switch the privacy settings to public, so that users could have an ability to make the profiles public. Use this API to quickly switch the privacy settings for all site members at once.

With the Member Privacy Settings API, you can:

  • Set the member privacy settings.
  • Retrieve the member privacy settings.

Overriding the default privacy status

If you call the Member Privacy Settings API, new settings are applied for the current members of the site, overriding the default status. For newly signed up members, only the default status is applied.

  • Example for using the Default Privacy Status API together with the Member Privacy Settings API when the site's default privacy status is PRIVATE:

    • Call Set Member Privacy Settings to update the privacy settings to PUBLIC. Current members can now choose to make their profiles PUBLIC. Newly signed-up members will have private profiles by default but can change their profiles to PUBLIC individually.

  • Example for using the Default Privacy Status together with the Member Privacy Settings API when the site's default privacy status is PUBLIC:

    • Call Set Member Privacy Settings to update the privacy settings to PRIVATE. All current and newly signed-up members can't make the profile PUBLIC.

Before you begin

It’s important to note the following points before starting to code:

Use cases

Terminology

  • Member privacy settings: Settings that determine who can see site members' profiles and who is allowed to make member profiles public.
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Member Privacy Settings API: Sample Use Case and Flow

This article shares a possible use case you could support, as well as a sample flow that could support this use case. This can be a helpful jumping-off point.

Temporary change privacy settings for event participation

In this scenario, a platform hosts virtual events, and during these events, participants should temporarily make their profiles public to encourage networking and interaction. However, once the event is over, participants’ profiles should revert to their original privacy settings.

To change privacy settings for an event:

  1. Call Create Event and store the event details along with a list of participants.
  2. Schedule when the privacy settings should change for participants, such as starting 1 hour before the event begins and ending 1 hour after the event finishes.
  3. Before the event starts, call Set Member Privacy Settings and change the publicMemberVisibility field to VISIBLE_TO_ALL.
  4. After the event ends, revert the profile visibility settings to the original settings using the stored backup. This ensures that the participant’s profile returns to the level of visibility it had before the event.
  5. The entire process can be automated through event triggers, such as:
    • Event started: Triggered automatically at the event’s start time.
    • Event ended: Triggered automatically at the event’s end time.
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