Anyone who has peeked into the cosmic abyss that is the Facebook comment section knows that, for creators, the ability to hide or remove certain remarks can be the difference between success and crushing, sad defeat. Meta knows this all too well, which is perhaps why they’re adding new tools for creators to moderate their comment sections.
The most powerful of these additions is perceptibly the option to hide or like comments in bulk, but TechCrunch reports that the new tools also allow creators to search by terms such as commenter name, keywords in the posts themselves, and even emojis.
Creators will also be able to see data about comments, including why comments were hidden and how many have been hidden up to 30 days back, in the Moderation Assist’s Activity Log if they’re using the service’s advance criteria to moderate posts. Any comment that is hidden on a post can similarly be “previewed” with a list of criteria that were violated in order for the comment to be removed.
Bobby Marshall, Facebook’s head of creator safety programs, released a statement on Safer Internet Day regarding the tools and increased control for creators.
“We recently expanded Moderation Assist and introduced a Creator Support Hub last year. Today’s updates enable creators to far more easily search comments – by keyword, date, emoji and more – and to take bulk actions around them, such as liking or hiding them,” says Marshall.
“Our goal with these tools is to give creators the time back to do what they do best – create content and build their community,” he adds.
Giving creators the ability to hide and remove comments in bulk is already a huge time-saver, but it’s also a mental relief as well. Trolling through post comments and taking in the sheer volume of off-color content can be entirely overwhelming. And it never quite ends. It’s something that indubitably contributes to creator burnout time and again.
Between the automated comment-hiding and the option to see which criteria were violated without having to dive into the cesspool of negativity that so often merits moderator action, Facebook has afforded a bit more autonomy to creators with the addition of these tools.
