Comment controls

Instagram lets public accounts accept comments from everyone or limit them to people they follow, their followers, or both groups34. Both public and private accounts can block particular accounts from commenting on their posts3. You can also stop comments on a post altogether; Mosseri suggested this in October 2025 as an option when you feel anxious about how your posts are doing28. Story comments have a separate control, which Mosseri described alongside settings for who can reply to Stories in June 20259.

Instagram’s automatic comment filters identify words and phrases commonly reported for harassment1. Instagram’s February 2019 announcement documented offensive-word and phrase filters as on by default, with an option to disable them in the app’s Comment Controls center2. Meta’s Transparency Center describes Hidden Words as a control you can turn on to automatically hide unwanted comments10. You can supplement the filtering with a custom list of words, phrases and emojis you do not want to see in comments17. In October 2022, Meta’s Newsroom reported that accounts with more than 10,000 followers saw, on average, 40% fewer potentially offensive comments after turning on Hidden Words for comments7. The same announcement described a test of automatically enabling Hidden Words for Creator accounts, while retaining users’ ability to turn the feature off7.

Instagram’s Restrict tool makes a restricted person’s comments visible only to that person unless you approve them for everyone else to see, a behavior Mosseri also explained in May 2025511. You can review, approve, delete or ignore those comments, and Instagram does not send you notifications about them5. The restricted person is not alerted, which lets you manage harassment without announcing that you have taken action1012. Limits addresses groups rather than one person: it temporarily hides comments from people who do not follow you or have only recently followed you during unwanted attention610.

Instagram lets you manage unwanted comments in batches by deleting multiple comments or blocking or restricting multiple commenters at once1314. In May 2020, Mosseri announced a test of Pinned Comments, which places selected comments at the top of a thread to help set its tone14. Instagram also warns people before they post potentially hurtful comments, and Mosseri said in August 2021 that the stronger warning about its rules and possible removal would appear on the first attempt rather than after repeated attempts1315. For creators who receive heated responses, Mosseri advised in May 2024 waiting about an hour before reading comments, giving Instagram more time to address harassment and move negative comments lower as other people contribute16.