The short answer: open Instagram, go to Settings and activity, then Hidden Words. Turn on Hide comments and Advanced comment filtering, then add your own words, phrases and emojis to the custom list, such as "DM me", "crypto" or "t.me". Instagram will then hide matching comments automatically. For spam that avoids your words, you need a tool that reads each comment in context.
What Instagram spam looks like in 2026
Most spam on business accounts falls into a few patterns. Knowing them tells you what to put on your word list.
- Fake giveaway winners: "Congrats, you won! DM @brand_giveaway_official to claim." These often copy your logo and name.
- Crypto and trading pitches: long replies praising a "financial expert" who made someone rich, usually with a handle or a Telegram link.
- Promotion offers: "Great content! Send it to @promo_page for a feature."
- Adult and dating bots: short comments that push people to a profile or link in bio.
- Emoji floods and follow-for-follow: low effort, but they bury real questions.
Step 1: Turn on Hidden Words
- Open your profile and tap the menu in the top right.
- Tap Settings and activity, then Hidden Words (under how others can interact with you).
- Turn on Hide comments. Instagram then hides comments it considers offensive.
- Turn on Advanced comment filtering. This hides more comments that may be inappropriate or spam, so expect a few false positives.
Hidden comments are not deleted. You can still find them by tapping View hidden comments at the bottom of a post's comments.
Step 2: Add your own words, phrases and emojis
In Hidden Words, open the custom words and phrases list and turn on hiding for comments that contain them. Start with the patterns your own account gets, then add these:
| Spam type | Words to add |
|---|---|
| Fake giveaways | claim your prize, you won, winner, giveaway (if you don't run giveaways) |
| Crypto and trading | crypto, bitcoin, forex, investment, profit, financial advisor |
| Off-platform contact | t.me, telegram, whatsapp, wa.me, DM me |
| Impersonation | your brand name with _official, _support or _help, and common misspellings of your handle |
| Promotion offers | promote it on, send it to @, collab |
Be careful with words your customers also use. If you sell crypto courses, "crypto" will hide real questions. A word list has no sense of context, so every word you add is a trade-off.
Step 3: Use Limits, Restrict and comment controls during spam waves
- Limits temporarily hides comments and messages from accounts that don't follow you or only followed you recently. It is the fastest fix when a bot wave hits a post.
- Restrict makes one account's new comments visible only to that person, without telling them.
- Block stops an account, and Instagram offers to block new accounts the same person creates.
- Comment controls let you allow comments from everyone, only people you follow, or only your followers.
Step 4: Check the hidden comments once a week
Advanced filtering and custom words will hide some real customers. Open View hidden comments on your busiest posts once a week. If a real question was hidden, unhide it, reply, and remove or narrow the word that caught it.
Why some spam still gets through
- Spelling tricks. Spammers write "cryp7o", add dots between letters or swap in look-alike characters, and a word list only catches what it lists.
- New phrasing every week. Bot networks change their text faster than you update a list.
- Volume. On a post with hundreds of comments, nobody scrolls far enough to find the three scams in the middle.
- Ads. Comments on Instagram ads arrive all day while the ad runs, often on posts you never look at in the app.
| Built-in setting | Catches | Misses |
|---|---|---|
| Hide comments | Common offensive language | Polite-sounding scams |
| Advanced comment filtering | More spam and borderline comments | New spam patterns; also hides some real comments |
| Custom word list | Exactly the words you add | Misspellings and anything you didn't think of |
| Limits | Bot waves from new or non-following accounts | Spam from older accounts that follow you |
When a moderation tool is worth it
The free settings are enough for a small account. A tool starts to pay off when you get more comments than you can read each day, when you run ads, when you manage several accounts, or when your word list keeps hiding real customers.
A moderation tool connects to Instagram through Meta's official API and reads each new comment as it arrives. Instead of matching words, an AI tool judges the whole comment: "Is this a scam?" from a worried customer stays visible, while a polite fake giveaway gets hidden. Social Moderator AI works this way: you write rules in plain English, it hides spam on Instagram and Facebook within minutes, shows the reason for every hidden comment, and lets you undo any decision in one click. Our comparison of 15 moderation tools covers the alternatives and their prices.
Frequently asked questions
Does Instagram tell people their comment was hidden?
No. Instagram doesn't send a notification, and in most cases the person who wrote a hidden comment can still see it themselves, so they don't notice.
Should I hide or delete spam comments?
Hiding is usually enough, and it keeps a record if you need to report an account. Delete comments that contain scam links or personal data. Our guide to deleting comments on Instagram walks through both.
How do I stop fake accounts pretending to be my brand?
Add your brand name with _official, _support and _help to your hidden words, pin a comment that says you never ask customers to message another account, and report impersonating accounts to Instagram.
Does Hidden Words work on Instagram ads?
Test it: post a comment with one of your hidden words on a running ad from a personal account and check whether it is hidden. Ad comments are where spam does the most damage, so don't assume.
Can I hide spam on Facebook the same way?
Facebook has its own tools: Moderation Assist, the profanity filter and keyword blocking on your Page. Our article on stopping spam comments without hiring a moderator covers both platforms.