By Jordan McDonald
55 comms Social Media Coordinator
Many Facebook users breathed a sigh when the social media giant recently announced that users would have some control over who commented on posts.
This addresses an issue that has made many people nervous for a long time: the trembling over possible comments that can be made on posts.
Facebook is now letting every user and every page determine who can comment on their content in order to better moderate inappropriate or defamatory comments.
The new feature has come as a result of a landmark ruling in Australia in 2019 which found that news outlets were liable for the defamatory comments on their posts. Without a suitable comment moderation feature on Facebook, media companies called for a change to the law as pressure on resourcing moderation staff grew.
How does the feature work? After you publish a post on your personal profile or your page, you will be able to click on the three dots in the top-right corner to reveal the usual menu of options. Added to the top of that menu will be a new option: “who can comment on your post?”
Once you click that you will be able to choose between making your post public, friends only, or limited to the profiles or pages you mentioned in the post. There is no option to turn off comments but this is as much control as Facebook has ever provided.
The rollout of this feature started March 31 and was expected to take two weeks before it was widely accessible. I have tested it this morning on both my personal profile and the 55comms page. It was available for my personal page but not on the 55comms yet so I suspect there’s still some delay with accessing the feature.
We will update you if any changes to this feature are made known.