How to Filter Comments on Facebook

Method 1: Hide comments by keyword with Content Moderation

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This is the one people mean when they say Facebook comment filter. You give your Page a list of words, and Facebook hides any comment containing one of them. It applies across your Page rather than post by post, so you set it once.

1. 1Open your Page settingsGo to your Facebook Page as an admin. On desktop, click Settings in the left sidebar. On mobile, tap the gear icon on your Page.
2. 2Go to Privacy, then Public PostsIn Settings, open Privacy, then choose Public Posts. This is the screen that holds every setting about what other people are allowed to put on your Page.
3. 3Find Content ModerationScroll down to the Content Moderation section and click Edit. If you have looked for this in Meta Business Suite and come up empty, that is why: it is a Page setting and it lives nowhere else.
4. 4Add your words, separated by commasType the words and phrases you want hidden, with a comma between each one. Emojis count as words here, so you can paste those in too. Any language works, because Facebook is matching the characters you typed.
5. 5Or upload a list instead of typing itClick the three dots to upload a spreadsheet, or paste a list you already keep somewhere else. This is the fast way to move a list between the Pages you manage.
6. 6Save, then check it caught somethingSave your changes. Hidden comments do not disappear, they move out of public view, so check your activity log after a day to see what the list actually caught and what it wrongly caught.

Method 2: Turn on the profanity filter

Sitting next to your keyword list is a separate switch with its own list, which Facebook writes and maintains. You cannot see inside it and you cannot edit it. You choose how aggressive it is, and that is the whole control.

1. 1Go back to Content ModerationSame place as Method 1: your Page, then Settings, then Privacy, then Public Posts. The profanity filter sits in the same section as your keyword list.
2. 2Pick a strengthYou get off, medium, or strong. Medium catches the words most people would call swearing. Strong reaches further, and reaches into words that were not swearing when you posted them.
3. 3Live with it for a weekCheck your activity log before you decide it is working. Strong is the setting that quietly hides a happy customer saying your product is unbelievably good at something, so look before you trust it.

Method 3: Set criteria with Moderation Assist

The newest and least known of the three, and the only one that looks at who is commenting rather than only what they said. Instead of words, you give it conditions. It hides anything matching them until you review it.

1. 1Open your professional dashboardSwitch to your Page and open the professional dashboard. In the left menu, select Moderation Assist, then click Let's Go.
2. 2Add criteria about the commenterYou can hide comments from new accounts, accounts with no friends or followers, accounts with no profile picture, and repeat offenders. This is the closest Facebook gets to catching a bot by behaviour instead of by vocabulary.
3. 3Add criteria about the commentYou can hide comments containing links, links to specific sites, or media like images and video. If scam replies under your posts always carry a link, this one rule is worth more than 200 keywords.
4. 4Review what it caughtClick Activity log to see what Moderation Assist hid, filtered by time and by which rule caught it. Anything it hides waits there for you rather than being deleted.

Where Facebook's own filters stop

All three are worth turning on and none of them cost anything. They also share one blind spot, and once you see it you cannot unsee it: every one of them is matching a pattern that somebody had to think of first.

• A keyword list only catches the words you thought of

  It is a snapshot of the spam you have already seen. The scam that shows up next Tuesday will use a word that is not on your list, and it will keep working until you notice it, open your settings, and add it. The list is always one incident behind.

• Nothing here reads meaning

  "Amazing product, message me and I will double your money" contains no profanity, no banned word, and no link. It reads as a compliment to every filter Facebook has. Your customers read it as a scam under your ad, because it is.

• The profanity filter is a locked box

  You cannot see what is in it, edit it, or find out why something got through. When it hides a comment you wanted, your only control is to make it weaker everywhere.

• Moderation Assist's profanity criteria is not built for every language

  Its profanity option currently covers a specific set of languages. If your audience comments in a dialect that is not one of them, that criteria has nothing to say about them, and you are back to typing words into a list by hand.

• Somebody has to keep it all current

  Three filters, one of them capped at 1,000 words, all of them needing a person who remembers to check the activity log. That person is usually you, at night, on your phone.

None of this makes Facebook's filters bad. It makes them what they are: a very good way to block words you already know about, on a platform where the problem changes every week.

When it does not work

• Why are comments still showing after I added the keyword?

  Check three things. The filter only hides comments posted after you saved the word, so anything already there stays. The comment may not contain your exact word, only something close that Facebook does not count as a variation. And if you added the word in Meta Business Suite rather than your Page settings, it is not saved where the filter reads from.

• Why can I not find Content Moderation in my Page settings?

  You need to be an admin of the Page, not an editor, and you need to be in the Page's own Settings rather than Meta Business Suite. The path is Settings, then Privacy, then Public Posts, then scroll. If you are on a personal profile rather than a Page, this setting does not exist for you at all.

• Why did the filter hide a comment I wanted to keep?

  Almost always the profanity filter on strong, which reaches into words that are not swearing in context. Open your activity log, unhide the comment, and drop the filter to medium. If it was your own keyword list, check for a short word that lives inside longer innocent ones.

• Why is the profanity filter missing swear words in my language?

  Facebook's profanity list does not cover every language equally, and Moderation Assist's profanity criteria covers a fixed set. For anything outside those, your own keyword list is the only native option. Write it in the language and dialect your audience actually comments in, not a translation of an English list.