Dear Social Media Managers, Please Moderate Comments on Your Posts

As an instructor of Social Media Marketing for Business at Portland State University, nothing infuriates me more than witnessing the negative chaos often found in unmoderated comment sections of large platforms on social media. In particular, this happens the most on content that discusses social justice, the pandemic, climate activism and human rights.

I am writing this today as a plea to both organizations, business owners and social media managers alike: You NEED to moderate the comments on your posts for racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-LGBTQIA+ and other topics that seem to attract Internet Trolls.

The larger the brand, the higher the likelihood that there are a number of followers just waiting for their opportunity to disagree, gaslight, shame, or mock either the writer of the story, the people included in the story, or other commenters themselves.

The Internet Trolls, as I like to call them, breed quickly in these spaces when their repulsive comments go unchecked. At face value, this may not seem like a big deal. Many social media teams have limited hours, schedule content days in advance, and are blissfully unaware of the chaos erupting in the comments.

While I have experienced this recently on a small scale writing about women’s rights, this is just the tip of the iceberg that many individuals in the groups mentioned above deal with on a daily basis.

It doesn’t matter how progressive, insightful and well-written your content is, if you allow comment sections to be flooded with hateful comments, you are allowing your community and followers to not only experience trauma directly but are devaluing your own brand’s message. As a social media manager, your goal is to retain followers & grow your brand’s reach. This, no doubt will do the opposite.

More times than not, I see a community or brand’s followers jump in on these comments to try to diffuse or shut down the Internet Trolls. This burden should not be placed on the community, especially if they are the ones being verbally attacked.

How can you ensure the safety of your community and uphold the standards of your social media content?

1) Know your job as a social media manager does not end when you publish your content. You must plan to monitor your content that is likely to elicit a response from the Internet Trolls. Meaning — you’re regularly checking in for up to three days after the content is posted.

2) Be prepared to delete and block any person who posts hurtful or hateful messages. Deleting the comments is not enough. You must have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to anything that goes against human rights and is hurtful or hateful behavior.

3) Communicate with your manager about your hours if they limit your ability to moderate comments. “What about after work hours?” You may ask. “I’m only paid from 8-5pm.” Great question!

This is where you must go to your manager and explain the situation. Someone needs to be held accountable for the “after hours” time period when social media activity is at its highest. If you are the business owner, congrats! Welcome to the world of being an ethical business owner and ensuring the safety of your community. Check-in every hour.

4) If you don’t have the time to manage a comment section of your post, turn off the commenting. It’s simple. If you don’t have the capacity to monitor, don’t allow comments to happen in the first place. (Note: this does not work on Facebook Page comments. But there is a workaround you can do.)

My call to action for readers and those who have felt frustrated by unattended comment sections and virtue-signaling from brands: Write a letter to the owners of the company. Don’t message the social media managers directly — it’s likely they are working on limited hours and need a top-down decision (like increasing hours or adding more social media managers to the team) or are part of the problem and will just ignore your message, like they are ignoring the comments. Voice your opinions to decision-makers about how it makes you feel as a customer.

If you are left ignored by the leaders of these companies, consider taking your business elsewhere. There are plenty of businesses and brands online that are doing the important work that could use your support.

Edited to add: This only applies to non-government agencies, as those are bound by the First Amendment Rights to free speech, which often allows for hateful messages to hold their ground. There are organizations looking to update the First Amendment Right, to help government organizations protect their community members from hate and harassment.

Crista Scott Tappan teaches Social Media Strategy for Business for The School of Business at Portland State University. To learn more about this course, visit PDX.edu/business.