How to Turn Off Comments on a Facebook Business Page

Dealing with a flood of spam or negativity in your Facebook comments can instantly disrupt your brand's messaging and your peace of mind. The good news is that you have more control over the conversation than you might think. This guide will walk you through exactly how to turn off comments on your Facebook Business Page, covering both individual posts and page-wide strategies, so you can protect your community and maintain a positive online space.

When Disabling Comments Makes Sense for Your Business

While open conversation is usually a good thing for engagement, there are specific, strategic moments when locking down the comments section is the right move for your brand. It's not about silencing feedback, it's about protecting your community and your team's time. Here are a few situations where it makes perfect sense.

To Stop Spam, Scams, and Bots

Ever had a popular post or Facebook Ad suddenly get bombarded with comments that have nothing to do with your content? These are often from bots or bad actors posting malicious links, promoting cryptocurrency scams, or using your audience to sell counterfeit goods. When a post becomes a magnet for this kind of activity, shutting down the comments is the fastest way to clean things up and prevent your followers from getting scammed. It maintains a professional look and protects your audience.

To Manage a Crisis or Sensitive Topic

If your business is facing a PR crisis, like a service outage, a product recall, or controversial news, the comments section can quickly become an unproductive and harmful pile-on. In these moments, tempers are high, and misinformation can spread like wildfire. Disabling comments on your official announcements allows you to deliver a clear, undisputed message without fanning the flames. This gives you control of the narrative and directs people to proper support channels instead of a chaotic public forum.

To Run a One-Way Announcement

Sometimes, a post is just an announcement, not a conversation starter. Think about posts concerning legal updates, terms of service changes, or a final notice about a store closing. For these factual, informational updates, comments aren't necessary and can often just lead to confusion or off-topic questions. Turning them off keeps the focus squarely on the information you need to convey.

When a Post is Outdated

Leftover posts about a contest that ended months ago or a promotion that's long expired can create confusion for new followers. People may see the old post and ask how to enter the giveaway or get the discount, forcing your team to repeatedly explain that the offer is no longer valid. By turning off comments on these archived posts, you signal that the information is out of date and gracefully sideline the conversation.

Understanding Your Options: Turning Off Comments on a Single Post vs. The Entire Page

Before you make any changes, it's important to understand that Facebook gives you two very different levels of control. You can either turn off comments on a specific, individual post, or you can try to implement page-wide restrictions.

Think of it like this: the single-post option is a surgical tool, perfect for targeting a problem without affecting anything else. The page-wide approach is more of a sledgehammer - it's broad, has significant side effects, and isn't officially supported with a simple On/Off switch. For 99% of situations, adjusting comment settings on a single post is exactly what you need.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Turn Off Comments on an Individual Facebook Post

This is the most common and effective method for controlling the conversation around a particular piece of content. When you notice a post is attracting unwanted attention, you can act immediately. The process is straightforward and only takes a few seconds.

Here's how to do it on a desktop computer (the steps are nearly identical on the mobile app):

1. Navigate to your Facebook Business Page and find the post you want to adjust.
2. Click the three-dot menu (...) located in the top-right corner of the post itself.
3. From the dropdown menu that appears, select the option that says, "Who can comment on your post?"
4. A pop-up will appear, giving you a few choices. This is where you can effectively "turn off" comments for most people. Let's look at what each option means:
   • Public: This is the default. Anyone on or off Facebook can see the post and comment on it.
   • Established Followers: This is a great first line of defense. It limits comments to people who have followed your page for more than 24 hours. This single-handedly stops most spam bots and knee-jerk reactions from brand-new, potentially fake accounts.
   • Pages You Follow: This is a highly restrictive option, usually not practical for most businesses unless you're trying to have a conversation only with specific partners.
   • Profiles and Pages you mention: This is the most restrictive setting and the one that is effectively a comments "off" button. If you haven't tagged anyone in your post, selecting this option means that no one can comment. If you have tagged a specific profile or page in your post's caption, only they will have the ability to comment.

To fully disable new comments on a post generating spam or negativity, simply choose "Profiles and Pages you mention." In seconds, the comment box will disappear for everyone else, giving you immediate control.

The Bigger Question: Can You Disable Comments Page-Wide?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions, and the answer is a little complicated: no, Facebook does not offer a simple, official "Turn Off All Comments" button for your entire Business Page.

Meta's platform is fundamentally built around the concept of two-way interaction and community building, so a page-wide comments-off feature goes against its core philosophy. However, there are a couple of workarounds you can use to achieve a similar result, but be aware they are unconventional and have drawbacks.

Alternative #1: Using the Page Moderation Word Filter

One clever tactic is to use Facebook's page moderation feature to automatically hide almost every comment that gets posted. The comments are still technically made, but they become invisible to everyone except the person who posted them and their friends.

Here's how to set it up:

1. Navigate to your Page, go to Settings > Privacy.
2. Select Public Facebook Posts from the menu.
3. Scroll down to find the Moderation section and look for the setting, "Hide comments containing certain words from your Page." Click edit.
4. Here, you can add a CSV file or manually enter a list of words that will trigger comments to be hidden. To block almost everything, you would need to add hundreds of the most common words in English (e.g., the, it, is, a, and, for, you, why, etc.).

The Downside: This method is imperfect. It can hide legitimate comments and requires a ton of setup to compile an effective word list. It's a blunt instrument that can easily go wrong, and it still requires you to manage the "hidden" comments section.

Alternative #2: Restricting Who Can Post on Your Page

Another common point of confusion is the setting that controls who can post on your page. While it sounds relevant, this setting actually manages a different part of your page entirely.

In Settings > Privacy > Page & tagging, you will see an option for "Who can post on your Page?" If you change this from "Everyone" to "Only Me," all you are doing is turning off the ability for visitors to leave entirely new posts on the Community or Visitors Posts tab of your Page. This does not prevent them from commenting on the posts you create in your main feed.

Beyond Turning Them Off: Smart Comment Moderation Strategies

Disabling comments should be a scalpel, not a sword you swing at every problem. It's most powerful when used in moderation as part of a larger community management strategy. Here are a few best practices to consider.

1. Hide, Don't Always Delete

When you see a negative or spammy comment, your first impulse might be to delete it. However, hiding the comment is often a smarter move. When you hide a comment, it remains visible to the person who wrote it and their direct friends, but it's hidden from the public. This is brilliant because the spammer doesn't realize their comment has been neutralized and is less likely to get angry and try posting it again. Deleting a comment can sometimes prompt the user to get into a battle of them re-posting a comment while you re-delete it.

2. Use Facebook's Moderation Assist

Before manually shutting everything down, check out Moderation Assist. Found in your Page Settings, this tool lets you set up automatic rules. You can tell Facebook to auto-hide comments that contain links, have no text (just an image or GIF), include profanity, or come from new accounts without a profile picture. It's a fantastic, proactive way to cut down on low-quality comments without manual intervention.

3. Create and Pin a Comment Policy

Take ten minutes to write a short "Community Guidelines" note. Outline what is and isn't acceptable in your comments section (e.g., "no personal attacks," "no spam," "no hateful language"). Pin this post to the top of your page. Now, when you have to hide a comment or ban a user, your action is justified by your publicly stated rules. It adds a layer of transparency and professionalism to your moderation.

Final Thoughts

Turning off comments on your Facebook Business Page can be a necessary tool for managing your online reputation, dealing with crises, and protecting your community from spam. While there isn't one button to disable them all page-wide, you have powerful control over individual posts - which is often the most strategic and effective approach for handling challenging situations.

Managing a busy comments section is time-consuming, and flipping between platforms to handle everything can easily pull you away from what's important. At Postbase, we built our unified social inbox to bring all your comments and DMs from Facebook, Instagram, and more into one clean place. This makes it so much easier to quickly handle disruptive comments and reply to your loyal fans without juggling a dozen browser tabs, giving you back command of your social presence.