Permanent link for When (and when not) to remove comments on social media on June 23, 2021

We’ve all had the moment where you check your social media page’s notifications and find a negative or inappropriate comment. What should you do about it?

The short, and less helpful answer, is that it really depends on the comment. But let’s dive into this a little bit more to hopefully provide some guidance for the next time you bump into a less-than-savory comment.

Our policy

The University Communications policy on comment moderation is listed on our social media guidelines website as follows:

“Grand Valley encourages freedom of expression and recognizes the value of diverse opinions. However, page administrators have a responsibility to remove comments, images, or other material deemed inflammatory, vulgar, or otherwise inappropriate, especially when they appear to threaten the welfare or safety of the poster or others.”

This statement is a great basis to help you determine what kinds of comments merit removal from a GVSU-affiliated social media account. 

With that, let’s break it down a little more. 

Types of comments you should remove

• Comments that are harassing or threatening a specific individual or group
• Comments that are potentially disturbing or triggering in nature for your followers
• Comments using vulgar or inappropriate language
  • Note: We recommend setting up language filters on your social media pages to avoid this issue in your comments. Here’s some info about how to do that on Facebook and Instagram.

Types of comments you should not remove

• Negative comments
• Comments that disagree with another person, or disagree with the post they are commenting on
• Comments that may be rude, but do not use inappropriate, vulgar or harassing language
• Trolling comments that are trying to bait the account into responding
• Comments containing misinformation or misleading subject matter
  • In this case, you may want to respond to the comment to politely clarify
• Comments that have sparked heated conversation amongst other users
  • It’s best not to get involved in these conversations unless inappropriate language is being used

The fine art of comment moderation

There are some situations where some of the points above might conflict with each other. 

Maybe you have someone endlessly spamming your page with negative comments, or you have a misleading comment that you don’t want to draw attention to but feel the need to clarify to your audience. 

These can be tough situations to navigate, and it really is important to consider comment moderation on a case-by-case basis. If you are unsure with how to proceed with handling a certain comment, please reach out to us at [email protected]. We’re always here to support you and think through solutions together.

Categories: best practices
Posted by Anna Young on Permanent link for When (and when not) to remove comments on social media on June 23, 2021.