How to Turn Off Comments in Meta Business Suite
Receiving a flood of comments on your Facebook and Instagram posts can be a great sign of engagement, but sometimes you need to pump the brakes. Whether you're dealing with spam, preparing for a sensitive announcement, or simply want to direct the conversation elsewhere, knowing how to disable comments is a crucial skill. This guide will walk you through exactly how to turn off comments for your posts directly within Meta Business Suite.
Why Turn Off Comments in the First Place?
Closing the comment section isn't about ignoring your audience, it's a strategic tool for managing your online community and brand narrative. There are several practical reasons why you might want to prevent users from commenting on a specific post.
Prevent Spam and Trolling: Some posts, especially popular ads or viral content, can become magnets for bots and spam comments. Turning off comments can be a quick and effective way to clean up the conversation, even if it's just a temporary measure.
Manage Sensitive or Controversial Topics: If you're posting about a sensitive company update, a controversial topic, or a public relations issue, disabling comments proactively can prevent a negative spiral and give you control over the messaging. It allows you to deliver your message without needing a team to moderate a heated or unproductive discussion.
Focus Attention on a Call-to-Action (CTA): When the primary goal of your post is to get users to click a link, sign up for a webinar, or visit your website, a busy comment section can be a distraction. By turning comments off, you guide user attention directly toward your intended CTA.
Reduce Moderation Workload: Small businesses and solo entrepreneurs don't always have the resources to moderate comments 24/7. For important announcements made after business hours or during a holiday, disabling comments can provide peace of mind and prevent any issues from slipping through the cracks.
Limit Outdated Information: For time-sensitive posts like a one-day sale or an event announcement, you might turn off comments after the event has passed to prevent new users from asking questions or getting confused by expired information.
Ultimately, turning off comments is a moderation tactic that gives you full control over how your audience interacts with your content on a post-by-post basis.
How to Turn Off Comments on a New Post (Before Publishing)
Perhaps the easiest way to manage comments is to disable them before the post even goes live. This is perfect for planned announcements or campaigns where you've already decided that public discussion isn't necessary or helpful. Here’s how to do it using Meta Business Suite.
Navigate to the Post Composer: Log into Meta Business Suite and click on the "Create post" button on your home screen or from the "Content" tab. This will open the post creation window.
Select Your Accounts and Craft Your Post: In the "Post to" section, choose the Facebook Page and/or Instagram account where you want to publish. Add your images or video, write your caption, and include any relevant links or tags just as you normally would.
Find the Commenting Settings: This is the key step. While still in the post composer, you'll need to locate the setting to turn off commenting. The exact location can shift with interface updates, but it is typically platform-specific. For a post going to both Facebook and Instagram, you might see dropdown menus below each platform's preview.
For Facebook, the option is often found by clicking a small settings icon or a settings menu, sometimes labeled "Commenting".
For Instagram, click on the "Advanced settings" toggle. This will open a new set of options, including one that says "Turn off commenting."
Disable Comments: Toggle the switch or check the box to turn off commenting for the platform(s) you've chosen. You can choose to disable it on Instagram but leave it on for Facebook, or vice-versa, giving you flexible control.
Publish or Schedule: Once you’ve finalized your content and settings, you can either click "Publish" to send it live immediately or select "Schedule" to post it at a later time. Your post will go live with the comments already turned off.
When users see the post, the "Comment" button will be gone, and a small message will usually appear stating that comments have been limited or turned off for that post.
How to Turn Off Comments on an Existing Post (After Publishing)
What if a post is already live and the comment section has become unmanageable? No problem. You can easily turn off comments on any post you've already published directly from Meta Business Suite.
Find the Post You Want to Edit: Go to the "Content" tab in the left-hand navigation menu of Business Suite. Here, you'll see a feed of all your published posts. You can scroll to find the post or use the filters to narrow down your search by date range or platform (Facebook/Instagram).
Open the Post Options Menu: Find the specific post you want to edit. Click on the three horizontal dots (...) located in the top-right corner of that post's card. This will open a dropdown menu of management options.
Select "Turn Off Commenting": In the dropdown menu, you'll see several options like "Edit Post," "Pin to Top," and "Delete Post." Find and click on the option that says "Turn off commenting." Keep in mind that for a post published to both Facebook and Instagram, this action might apply to both networks, or you may need to open the post individually to manage each one.
Confirm the Action: A pop-up might appear asking you to confirm your decision. Once you do, comments on that post will be immediately disabled for all users.
After you disable commenting, any existing comments will typically be hidden (not deleted), and no new users will be able to add comments. You can always follow the same steps and select "Turn on commenting" later if you want to reopen the discussion.
Alternative Strategies: Using Comment Moderation and Filters
Sometimes, a complete shutdown isn't necessary. Meta Business Suite also offers robust moderation tools that allow you to control the conversation without having to turn off comments entirely. This can be a better option when you still want to allow for positive engagement while weeding out the negative.
1. Set Up Automated Moderation
In the "Inbox" section of Business Suite, you can access "Automations." Here, you can build rules to automatically manage comments based on certain criteria.
Create a Comment Blocklist: Under moderation settings, you can create a list of keywords, phrases, or emojis that you want to automatically hide. If a comment contains anything from your blocklist (e.g., swear words, spam links, competitor names), it will be hidden from public view. Only page admins will see it.
Profanity Filter: Facebook has its own profanity filter that you can turn up to a higher setting to automatically catch a wide range of offensive content.
2. Automatically Reply to and Hide Comments
You can also create an Automation to handle specific types of predictable comments. For example, if you run a service-based business, you can set it up so that any comment containing the word "pricing" or "how much" is automatically hidden and the user receives a direct message answering their question. This provides good customer service while keeping pricing discussions private and the comment section clean.
3. Manually Hide or Delete Comments
For more nuanced situations, manual moderation is still a powerful tool.
Hiding a Comment: This is often the best first step. When you hide a comment, it remains visible to the person who wrote it and their friends, but it's hidden from the general public. This is great for dealing with complainers or trolls, as they often don't realize their comment has been moderated.
Deleting a Comment: This removes the comment permanently for everyone. It's best used for overt spam, clear violations of your community guidelines, or comments that contain sensitive private information.
Banning a User: If a user is repeatedly abusive or spammy, you can ban them from your Page. This prevents them from commenting on any of your content in the future.
Using these moderation tools can offer a more balanced and community-friendly approach than a blanket ban on comments, allowing you to foster discussion while maintaining control.
Final Thoughts
Knowing how to turn off comments in Meta Business Suite is a simple yet powerful skill for any social media manager or business owner. Whether it's to get ahead of a sensitive issue, reduce spam, or simply focus your audience's attention, you have complete control over the conversation on a post-by-post basis, both before and after publishing.
Just like managing comments helps you control your brand narrative, making sense of your performance data helps you understand what’s actually working. Instead of manually exporting reports from Meta and a dozen other platforms, we built Graphed to do the heavy lifting for you. You can connect your marketing and sales data in seconds and ask questions in plain English to build real-time dashboards and reports, saving you hours of tedious work every week.