Facebook now lets users and Pages limit comments on posts, after a 2019 Australian court ruling that news outlets are liable for comments on their Pages
a win for news media outlets who were in the ludicrous position of having to monitor a vast number of stories. This was so stupid and unfair https://www.theguardian.com/ ... @flipprior : Woahhhhhh this is moderation solution news orgs have asked for for years!! Hot off the press - Facebook now lets users and pages turn off comments on their posts - seeya trolls! https://www.theguardian.com/ ... https://www.theguardian.com/ ... @quiip : This is a fantastic and long-awaited development for Facebook Page owners - although risks will still remain https://twitter.com/... Dave Earley / @earleyedition : oh, and this is what the options will look like. It's basically like @Twitter's option to limit who can reply to your tweets https://www.theguardian.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook’s Australian news confrontation had already shown that the company would resist arrangements that reduced its control over the platform, as seen in its Australia news ban. The Australian ruling put news publishers’ Facebook Pages at the center of that control-versus-liability conflict.
The new comment-setting tool gives Page operators a product-level response to that exposure. It did not settle publishers’ legal position: CNN later restricted access to its Australian Facebook Pages under the same liability framework.
First-order effects
- News outlets and other Page operators can limit who comments on individual posts, reducing the volume of third-party speech they must manage on Facebook.
- Facebook shifts part of comment-risk management from manual publisher moderation to a configurable Page control.
Second-order effects
- Australian publishers can pair comment limits with tighter Page access policies, rather than treating an open comment section as the default for every story.
- Facebook’s control gives Page owners a narrower compliance option, but CNN’s later restriction shows that platform settings alone did not eliminate the incentive to reduce exposure.
Third-order effects
- Platform governance is moving toward granular publisher controls as legal responsibility for user speech reaches beyond the platform itself.
- If liability rules continue to target publishers’ Pages, access and participation settings become core distribution choices rather than merely community-management features.
The trend: Social platforms are turning moderation and access controls into publisher-facing compliance tools as legal liability for user comments expands.