What Happens When You Hide Comments On Facebook?

Social media sites like Facebook are a great platform to chat with friends. But it has also become a breeding ground for hate speech, personal attacks, and more. These often come into your life through comments. One way to deal with them is to hide comments on Facebook to hide unwanted stuff. However, what happens when you hide comments on Facebook?

There are some questions that remain unanswered, can you just hide comments on your posts? What about posts you’ve been tagged in? Can mutual friends see comments you’ve hidden?

That’s why we’ve rolled up our sleeves to provide as much clarity as we can about hiding comments on Facebook.

Let’s start.

How to Hide Comments on Facebook

With billions of users on Facebook, we assume that a fair amount of people have yet to hide comments on their Facebook accounts. So, whenever you come across a comment about your update or someone’s comment, select the three-dot menu next to the comment and select Hide comment.

The text of the comment should appear dimmed or gray. Below you will see the Show option which can be useful if you change your mind later.

The same steps will work in smartphone apps. Press and hold the comment to reveal a popup with the hide comment option.

Note: Seeing grayed-out comments and don’t remember hiding them? It is possible that these comments were marked as spam by the system or violated one of Facebook’s policies.

What Happens When You Hide Comments On Your Posts/Page?

There are two scenarios. The first is where you post a status update and someone comments on it. The second is when someone comments on an update to your Page. When you hide a comment on your post/update, it will be visible to the person who posted it and all their friends.

The commenter and their friends can also continue the discussion. Only people on the commenter’s friend list can view or interact with this comment. No one else can.

Does Hiding Comments Notify Commenters?

The short answer is a big no. Unless people start talking about it, the commenter will never find out. People these days are clever and often take screenshots of controversial comments that predict such a move. Be careful what you hide or delete. If you’re not sure, read our post below on what types of comments you should hide.

What Happens When You Hide Comments On Tagged Posts?

Let’s say someone tagged you in a post you don’t want to do anything about. Then you ask your friend to remove your name or comment, but they don’t listen because you’re annoyed, and that’s even more fun/satisfying.

You can also hide comments on updates you’ve been tagged in and the process remains the same. Your friends won’t be able to see it, but they will be, and if you have mutual friends, they can too.

You can prevent people from tagging you or have each tagged tag submit an approval process before it appears on your timeline. It’s called Review and you can find it at the bottom of the screen under Settings > Timeline & Tagging.

What Types of Comments Should You Hide?

Hiding comments is not always a good idea. I already shared a reason above that users can take screenshots. Here’s another and better one. Let’s say you run a business page and people are making good and bad comments about your product or customer service.

If someone is dissatisfied with your service, try to understand and fix the problem or root cause. This will show the client that you care and that no one is perfect. It just makes you human. Even some of the most respected and loved brands receive negative reviews in the form of constructive criticism. And it’s okay.

Things that aren’t good are spam, abusive language, personal marketing or self-promotion, irrelevant links or images, inappropriate or adult content, or hate speech. You should always hide such comments and you can even block them if they repeat the offense.

It is your right to protect yourself or your business’s reputation, but not at the expense of losing customers. This is a judgment call and you must decide whether to react or respond.

If possible, respond to comments instead of reacting to them.

You don’t want your customers to lose their trust or think you’re not transparent about your business. Transparency and honesty with customers definitely helps build lasting relationships with customers.

You can also ask the client to share their email id or phone number via DM and remove the topic from the page. You can’t always offer a solution right away. Some things take time and you don’t want to stay on Facebook for long.

Think before you act

Managing your social life online should have been fun. Instead it has become a chore and a headache in more ways than one. Social media sites are struggling with countless problems and lives are turned upside down because of a single update or photo/video. You should treat reviews carefully, especially if you manage a business page. The good thing is that you can always show a comment later.

Next: You will learn the difference between Facebook’s Take A Break and Unfollow feature. They’re both different, and knowing the difference can help you maintain your friendship.