Host a private watch party

A private party starts with the Who can join row, the quiet line under the Start a watch party button. Click it and you get five choices. It starts on Invite only, and four of them keep the party private in different ways, so the difference is worth thirty seconds before you press start.

• Invite only takes the party off the public surface. Nobody finds it from the video, and the link you send is the whole door: anyone holding it can come in, and anyone they pass it to can too.
• Followers, Friends and A group are real gates. The door checks every arrival, so someone outside the circle is turned away even with the link in hand. The Followers row names the persona it belongs to, something like Followers of Kobe, because followers belong to a persona rather than to your account.
• Everyone is the open party, the only choice that puts it in front of people on the video. That one is covered in Host a public watch party.

Keep a party to your own people

1. Open the video, open Watch Along, and click the Who can join row under Start a watch party. Pick Invite only if the link itself is your guest list, or Followers, Friends or A group if you want the door to check. Picking A group brings up a list of your groups with the first one already chosen, so change it if you meant a different one.

2. Click Start a watch party. The choice is set when the party opens; there is nothing to flip afterward.

3. Take the link with Copy link, right in the People room beside the small QR code, or open the bigger code with Show QR code, behind the gear on desktop. Send it directly, to the people you mean. With Invite only, anything you post the link into can pass it on; with the gated choices, the link only works for people who belong anyway.

4. Set how you appear. On a computer, and on a phone held sideways, the control is at the foot of the panel; on a phone held upright, swipe to the You card. Masked is the default and is the one to leave alone if you want the party private in the fuller sense.

5. When you are finished, end it. On desktop, open the gear beside People, Chat and Voice and click End the party. On a phone held upright, swipe to the You card and find End the party under Ending; sideways, it sits in the panel itself, under Party settings. Either way the link stops working, and party chat is gone with it.

The Visible, Masked and Hidden control is a different thing

This is the one people mix up, so it is worth being exact. The three-way control labeled Your visibility, at the foot of the panel on a computer or a phone held sideways and on the You card when the phone is upright, does not change who can get into your party; that is what Who can join is for. It changes who you look like once you are in one:

• Visible. Friends can see it's you.
• Masked. You appear as a made-up name, a two-word one like Cosmic Newt, drawn fresh for the session.
• Hidden. You don't appear at all. You see everyone; nobody sees you.

Your identity comes from this control and nothing else. You can be Visible in an invite-only party, and you can be Masked in an Everyone party: the two settings never touch.

The same three are spelled out under How you appear in the party's own settings, behind the gear, if you want to read them again in place.

Talking out loud in a private party

Voice works here, and it is already on: the party opens with it running and every microphone muted. The first four people in, you included, hold a mic seat, and you hand out the rest from the Voice room. Nothing said in a party is recorded or stored.

Camera works here too, but only behind the three gated choices. Followers, Friends and A group are what the product counts as a private party, because the door checks every arrival; Invite only is unlisted, where the link is the door, and camera does not open there. In a party that qualifies, the camera control appears beside the mic for anyone holding a seat who also has a paid plan and an adult answer to the age question. Party voice, captions, and camera has the whole picture, including the one-time age check.

What privacy does and does not cover

• An Invite only link is unguessable but not revocable person by person. You can end the party, which cuts everyone off, but you cannot remove one person and leave the rest.
• A rider can pass the link on. Anyone in the party can read it out of their own panel. In a Followers, Friends or A group party the passed-on link still only works for people who belong.
• Someone without an account cannot pass a gate. The Followers, Friends and A group doors need the arrival signed in; guests without accounts can only join Everyone and Invite only parties.
• A group gate checks the persona, not the account. Whoever built the group added a persona, so a rider has to be using that persona when they arrive. Being the same person behind a different persona does not open the door. User groups has the rule.
• Nothing about a non-Everyone party is public. It is not on your profile, not in Discover, not on the video, and not in any list.
• Party chat disappears when the party ends. It is not kept anywhere afterward.
• Your mask does not follow you around. Switching back to Masked leaves no record of who you were.

What's next

• Host a public watch party is the same job from the other side.
• Invite a friend to a watch party has the step-by-step for getting the link out.

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