How to Edit Who Can Comment on Facebook Posts

Controlling the conversation around your Facebook content is more than just good moderation - it's essential for building a healthy online community. But figuring out how to manage who can comment, and when, can feel like a moving target. This guide will walk you through exactly how to edit your comment settings on Facebook, covering everything from default settings to controlling individual posts after they've already gone live.

Why Is Controlling Comments So Important?

Opening up a post for public comments can feel like you're broadcasting to the world with no safety net. While engagement is often the goal, the wrong kind can damage your brand, derail your message, and exhaust your resources. By thoughtfully managing your comment permissions, you take back control.

Here's why it matters:

• Protect Your Brand's Reputation: Preventing spam, trolls, and overtly negative comments helps maintain a positive image. A clean comment section signals a professional and well-managed presence.
• Foster a Safe Community: Your comment section is a community space. When you curate it, you make it a safer and more welcoming place for your target audience, encouraging more meaningful interactions.
• Keep the Conversation on Track: For specific announcements, questions, or contests, you might want to limit comments to prevent the conversation from getting cluttered with off-topic noise. It keeps your message clear and the feedback relevant.
• Save Time and Energy: Constantly deleting spam and arguing with trolls is a time-consuming drain on your energy. Being proactive with comment settings means you spend less time firefighting and more time engaging with genuine followers.

Two Main Approaches: Proactive vs. Reactive Control

You can manage your comments in two ways: by setting your global preferences for who can generally comment on your public posts (proactive) or by changing the setting on a specific post, either before or after you publish it (reactive). We'll cover both, starting with the proactive method.

Method 1: Setting Your Default Public Post Comment Settings

Facebook allows you to choose a default audience for who can comment on your public posts. This is a great "set it and forget it" option if you want a consistent rule applied to everything you share publicly. This is especially useful for personal profiles that are used professionally or for creators who want to build a community primarily among their direct and extended network.

Keep in mind that this setting only applies to posts you share publicly. If you share a post with "Friends," only those friends will be able to see or comment on it anyway.

Here's how to set your global preference on a computer:

1. Click on your profile picture in the top-right corner of Facebook and select Settings &, privacy, then click Settings.
2. In the left-hand menu, scroll down to the "Audience and visibility" section and click on Followers and public content.
3. Look for the section titled Public post comments. Here, you'll have a few choices.
4. Select who you want to allow to comment on your public posts.
   • Public: Anyone, including people who don't follow you, can comment. This allows for maximum reach but also maximum risk of spam or unwanted comments.
   • Friends: Only your friends on Facebook can comment on your public posts. People who aren't your friends can still see and react to the post, but the comment button will be gone for them.
   • Friends of friends: Your friends and their friends can comment. This is a good middle ground, expanding your circle slightly without opening the floodgates to everyone.

Once you've made your selection, it will save automatically. From now on, any post you share with the "Public" privacy setting will adopt this comment rule.

Method 2: Control Comments on a Brand New Post (Before You Publish)

Sometimes you need more granular control. A sensitive announcement might need stricter comment rules than a fun, engaging question. Luckily, Facebook lets you decide who can comment on a post-by-post basis as you're creating it. This feature is mainly available on personal profiles but is rolling out to more Page experiences.

Here's the breakdown for an individual post on your profile:

1. Go to the "What's on your mind?" composer box at the top of your News Feed.
2. Under your name, you'll see the audience selector (it usually defaults to "Friends" or "Public"). Make sure this is set to Public, as you cannot restrict comments on a post if its audience is already restricted to just friends.
3. Write your post and add your image or video.
4. Before you hit "Post," look for a small globe or friends icon next to the Post button, or check the three-dot menu within the composer. The layout can vary slightly. You should see an option for "Who can comment on your post?"
5. Click on it, and you'll get a few options:
   • Everyone: The default for public posts. Any Facebook user can chime in.
   • Friends: Only your direct connections can comment.
   • Profiles and Pages you mention: This is a very powerful tool. Only the specific people or Pages you @mention in your post can leave a comment. This is perfect for curated conversations, collaborations, or announcements where you only want responses from specific parties.
6. Choose your preferred setting and publish your post.

Method 3: Edit Comments on an Existing Post (After It's Live)

What happens when a post takes an unexpected turn? Maybe a giveaway is getting spammed, or a debate is getting too heated. You don't have to delete the post - you can simply change who is allowed to comment on it after the fact. This is one of the most useful moderation tools for a community manager.

Here's how to shut down or limit comments on a live post:

1. Navigate to the post you want to edit.
2. Click the three dots (...) in the top-right corner of the post itself.
3. A drop-down menu will appear. Look for the option "Who can comment on this post?" Click it.
4. You'll be presented with the same audience options as before: Public/Everyone, Friends, and Profiles/Pages you mention.
5. Select your new desired level of restriction.

The change is instant. If you switch from "Public" to "Friends," anyone who isn't your friend will see the existing comments but won't be able to add new ones. This is an excellent way to cool down a heated conversation without removing the post entirely.

Pro Tip: This is also where you can go one step further and Turn off commenting entirely. Choosing this option archives the current comments and completely closes the conversation for everyone.

Advanced Tools for Managing Your Comment Section on a Business Page

Beyond simply limiting who can comment, Business Pages have access to more powerful, automated tools to keep their comment sections clean and productive. These are found in your Page settings.

Using the Moderation Assist Tool

Facebook's Moderation Assist is like having an automated moderator working for you 24/7. You can set up criteria to automatically hide certain types of comments.

How to set it up:

1. Go to your Facebook Page and select Professional Dashboard from the left menu.
2. Under "Your tools", find and click on Moderation Assist.
3. Click Add to start creating rules. You can automatically hide comments based on:
   • Keywords: Create a list of words, phrases, or even emojis that you want to be hidden automatically. This is perfect for filtering out profanity, spam links, or competitor names.
   • Link in comment: Instantly hide comments that contain a URL. This is a huge help in fighting off spam bots.
   • No profile picture: A common marker of a fake or troll account.
   • Repeat offenders: Automatically hide comments from people who have had previous posts hidden or deleted by moderators.

This automated approach frees you from having to manually scan every single comment, letting you focus on engaging with the positive ones.

Hiding vs. Deleting Comments

When you encounter a negative comment, your first instinct might be to delete it. However, hiding is often the better strategy.

• Hiding a comment makes it invisible to everyone except the person who posted it and their friends. They won't know they've been hidden, which means they are less likely to get angry and try to post again.
• Deleting a comment permanently removes it. This can sometimes provoke the commenter into posting again, accusing you of censorship and making the situation worse.

To hide or delete a comment, just hover over it and click the three dots (...) that appear, then make your choice.

Final Thoughts

Effectively managing who can comment on your Facebook posts gives you the power to shape the environment around your content. By using a mix of global settings, post-specific controls, and automated moderation tools, you can reduce spam, prevent negativity, and create a community space that encourages valuable and constructive conversations.

Dealing with comments one-by-one is tedious, but jumping between multiple platforms to handle DMs and replies is even more chaotic. We built Postbase with a unified inbox that brings all your conversations from all your connected social accounts into one single, clean column. It allows our users to reply to comments and messages quickly without ever leaving the dashboard, helping them manage their community much more efficiently.