Unlike Facebook, Instagram does let you turn off comments on an individual post — before publishing through advanced settings, or afterwards from the post's menu. Beyond that single switch, Instagram's controls are about limiting and filtering: who may comment, which words get filtered, and what happens during an unexpected spike.
Turn off comments on a single post
When creating a post, open the advanced settings and switch commenting off. For a published post, open the menu on the post itself and turn commenting off there; existing comments are hidden from view while the switch is off. This works per post — there is no account-wide off switch.
Account-level comment controls
- Comment controls: allow comments from everyone, only people you follow, or your followers, and block comments from specific accounts.
- Hidden Words: filter offensive comments automatically and maintain a custom list of words, phrases, and emojis to hide.
- Limits: temporarily restrict comments and messages from accounts that do not follow you or followed you recently — useful during a pile-on.
- Blocking and restricting: stop individual repeat offenders entirely.
Instagram moves these settings between menus periodically; as of this writing they live under the privacy and Hidden Words areas of the app's settings. Searching settings for 'comments' or 'hidden words' is faster than following a memorized path.
Why businesses should usually hide, not disable
- Comments feed the engagement signals that earn organic reach.
- Pre-purchase questions in comments convert lurkers — silence converts nobody.
- Instagram ads cannot have their comments turned off, so paid placements need moderation regardless.
- Hiding is invisible to everyone except the author, so it defuses rather than escalates.
Scaling past the native controls
Native controls are per-account and mostly manual. Once an Instagram Business Account is connected to a Facebook Page, a moderation tool working through the official Meta API can apply rules to every new comment: auto-hide links and spam bait, filter profanity and negativity with AI across languages, hide everything for approval during launches, and route genuine buyer questions to your team with intent labels.