What happens when you hide a comment on Facebook? Who still sees it

When you hide a comment on a Facebook Page post, Meta says it will "still be visible to the person who wrote it and their friends", while everyone else stops seeing it, replies included. The author gets no notification, so from their side nothing changes, and you can unhide the comment at any time.

That wording was checked on Meta's help center on 25 September 2026. Below: an exact visibility table, how hiding compares with deleting and blocking, hide and unhide steps for each device, and what changes under ads and dark posts.

Who can see a hidden comment on Facebook?

On a personal profile the logic is the same, except that "everyone else" means the rest of the audience you shared the post with, such as Friends or Public (see Meta's page on profile comments).

Can someone see if you hide their comment?

Not by looking at the post from their own profile. Their friends see the comment too, so nobody around them has a reason to mention it's gone. The only giveaway is opening the post from an account outside their friend list, where the comment is missing.

Meta presents this as a feature: keeping the comment visible to its author can help prevent more unwanted comments. A person who doesn't know they were moderated has no reason to post again or to accuse the brand of censorship.

Facebook itself does keep count. Moderation Assist offers a criterion that hides comments from anyone who has had at least 3 comments reported, deleted or hidden by an admin in the past 30 days, according to Meta's Moderation Assist guide. The hides your team makes by hand feed that rule, which helps it catch repeat trolls.

What does "This comment has been hidden" mean?

It is the line the Facebook app for iPhone shows to people who manage a Page, in place of a hidden comment. Tapping and holding it lets you read the comment or restore it (steps below).

It isn't always a teammate's doing. The Hidden by this Page view also lists comments caught by Facebook's profanity filter and by the words you blocked on the Page, so the line often means an automatic filter did its job.

Hide vs delete vs block vs restrict on Facebook

Only the first two act on a comment. Blocking acts on a person, and the Restricted list belongs to personal profiles.

Deleting happens from the same comment menu; our guide on how to delete comments on Facebook covers each case, including ads. Limiting who can comment is a fifth option, covered in our guide on turning off comments on Facebook. Sources: Meta's pages on blocking profiles from a Page and on the Restricted list.

How to hide a comment on Facebook

Switch into the Page first, then use the path for where you are working.

The Business Suite path follows Meta's Inbox guide. For the automatic options, our guide to the Facebook comment filter walks through each setting.

How to unhide comments on Facebook

On a computer or in the Android app:

1. From your Page, open the post.

2. At the top of the comments, click Most relevant, then select Hidden by this Page.

3. Below the comment, click Unhide, or hover over Options and click Unhide comment. On Android, tap and hold the comment, then tap Unhide comment.

The iPhone app has no Hidden by this Page view: tap and hold "This comment has been hidden" under the post, then select Unhide. On a computer, the filter only appears while comment ranking is on, which is the default for Pages (Meta's comment ranking page). Unhiding a comment restores its replies as well.

For comments hidden by Moderation Assist, use its Activity log instead: search by commenter, filter by date range, activity type or criterion, then open a comment's details to let it show again.

Can you unhide all hidden comments at once?

No. Meta documents no bulk unhide for Page comments, so each one is restored individually. When a rule hid too much, correct the rule first (an overly broad keyword is the usual cause), then restore the legitimate comments from the Activity log, filtered by the criterion that caught them.

Hidden comments on Facebook ads and dark posts

A hidden ad comment follows the same visibility rule as any other. What changes is where you find it. Dark posts, the ads never published on your Page's timeline, don't appear when you scroll the Page, so work from Ads Manager, as Meta's page on ad comments describes (the same tools also open from your Facebook notifications):

1. In Ads Manager, open the Ads tab, find the ad and click Edit below its name.

2. In the left column, click the ... menu next to the ad name, then More options.

3. Choose Manage Facebook comments, open the menu next to a comment and select Hide comment.

Filters help here too. Meta says the profanity filter and blocked words set on your Page extend to ads run from it. For Moderation Assist, Meta's own pages disagree: the English version says it covers ads you run, the French version says it does not. Check its Activity log after a launch before relying on it.

For many brands, ads are where hiding matters most. On Blabla, about a quarter of the brand workspaces that hide comments hide mostly ad comments. Our walkthrough for keeping an eye on Facebook ad comments explains where they surface.

Why Blabla hides by default, and when to delete instead

Blabla's moderation hides comments by default; deleting is a separate action you choose on purpose. Three reasons drive that choice:

• Mistakes are cheap. AI and keyword rules sometimes misread a comment, and a wrong hide takes one click to undo.

• A record remains. Hidden comments stay available if you need to review them, report them or keep evidence.

• Your audience gets the same result. Customers and ad viewers don't see the comment in either case.

Figures from Blabla's paying customers (30 days to 25 September 2026) follow the same logic: deletions make up less than 5% of all hide and delete actions, and about 70% of the hidden volume comes from a single broad AI rule against negative or harmful comments.

Automation does not remove the need to look. In a sample of hidden comments, complaints were the largest classified category, around a quarter. Abusive ones belong out of sight; fair ones deserve a public answer, and our guide on handling negative comments suggests replies.

Deletion keeps its place for the cases listed in the table above, where even the author's friends shouldn't be able to read the comment.

Common mistakes when hiding Facebook comments

• Hiding a reply and calling the thread clean. Hiding only a reply leaves the original comment visible to everyone. Hide the parent to remove the whole thread.

• Giving your agency the wrong access. Meta says people with task access to a Page can't hide comments on its posts; they need Facebook access.

• Expecting a new rule to clean old threads. Moderation Assist only hides comments posted after a criterion is created.

• Blocking everyday words. A list with words such as "order" or "delivery" hides the questions of people ready to buy. Our free comment blocklist generator builds a list for your Page and tests it against disguised spam.

• Treating a hide as a report. Hiding does not alert Meta. If a comment breaks the Community Standards, report it from the same menu after hiding it.

Where Blabla fits

Blabla hides Facebook comments through Meta's official API, with the same hide action a Page admin uses, so a comment it hides behaves exactly like one you hide by hand. Rules run in real time, day and night, and combine keyword lists with AI instructions written in plain language, such as "hide comments that insult our staff or promise fake refunds". Rules apply to organic posts as well as to ads and dark posts, the latter on the Pro plan. Each automation keeps a history of what it hid, and your team answers what stays visible from one inbox. If someone on your team reads every comment within the hour, Facebook's native tools may be all you need. Otherwise, see how Blabla moderation works on Facebook and on ad comments.

The short version

Hide anything you simply don't want your audience to read; deletion, blocking and a public reply cover the rest. To turn these choices into a routine the whole team follows, from house rules to escalation, see our Facebook comment moderation guide.