Data report · July 2026 · Public Square Analytics

When Local Governments Turn Off Facebook Comments: How Common It Is, and What It Costs

Turning off the comment section is one of the hardest calls in local-government social media. Comments invite harassment, misinformation, and a records-retention headache — but they’re also where the community actually shows up. So we measured it: across 4,539 city and county Facebook pages over six months, how many run with comments off, where they cluster, and what it tracks with. The engagement gap is bigger than we expected — and it holds even when you compare towns of the same size.

How common is it? About 1 in 8

Of the 23,549 active, engaged page-months we could classify, 12.1% ran with comments off — roughly one in eight. That’s not a fringe practice: 1,250 distinct pages turned comments off in at least one month, and 586 did so in most of the months they were active. And it’s steady — the rate held between 9.7% and 14.0% every month from January to June, with no real trend. On any given month, a meaningful slice of local government simply switches the conversation off.

Who turns them off: smaller governments, by a wide margin

The single clearest predictor is size. Split the pages into three population bands and the comments-off rate nearly triples from the largest governments to the smallest:

Share of active, engaged page-months running comments off, by Census population band.

This makes intuitive sense. A small town’s page is often run by one person with no bandwidth to moderate a comment thread, and a single heated local dispute can feel like reason enough to close it. Larger governments tend to have communications staff, a comment policy, and the capacity to keep the section open. Keep this size effect in mind — it explains most of the map you’re about to see.

Where it happens: a 10× spread across states

Comments-off rates range from under 4% to over 36% depending on the state — and the pattern is largely a story about town size. The states where it’s most common are dominated by small, rural municipalities; the states where it’s rarest skew toward larger cities and counties.

Comments-off rate by state, among 48 states with enough classifiable pages. Small-population states with few reported pages (e.g., Montana’s 28) are noisier; treat the ordering as indicative.

What it costs: less engagement of every kind — even at the same size

Here’s the part that should give a comms team pause. You’d expect a comments-off page to have zero comments — that’s the definition. But these pages also earn far fewer likes and shares, the two signals that have nothing to do with the comment setting. And it isn’t just because comments-off pages tend to be smaller: the gap holds, and barely moves, inside every population band.

The size of the gap is remarkably consistent. In every band, a comments-off page earns roughly two-thirds fewer likes per post (67% lower for small towns, 68% for mid-size, 77% for large) and 40–55% fewer shares per post. Because this is a within-band comparison — small towns against small towns, big cities against big cities — it can’t be waved away as “those pages are just smaller.” Whatever is going on, it touches reach, not only the comment count.

Why would turning off comments cost likes?

Two forces likely both contribute. First, the algorithm: Facebook’s ranking rewards engagement, and comments are among the strongest signals it has. A post that can’t be commented on forfeits that signal and the conversational reach that comes with it — fewer people are shown the post, so it also collects fewer likes and shares. Second, selection: a page that turns comments off is often a page with less time for social altogether — less frequent posting, fewer photos, less community management — and all of that depresses engagement independently. Our data can’t cleanly separate the two, which is the honest caveat below. But for a comms lead weighing the decision, the association is strong and it points one way: closing comments tends to travel with a quieter feed overall.

So should you turn comments back on?

Not always — but the default deserves a second look. If comments went off during one bad stretch and never came back on, the data suggests you’re paying for it in reach every week since. A few middle paths keep the upside without the 24/7 moderation burden:

• Post a comment policy and moderate to it. A pinned, plain-language policy (no harassment, no misinformation; hidden, not deleted) lets you keep comments on and act consistently — which also matters for the First Amendment questions around a government page.
• Hide, don’t delete. Hiding a comment removes it from public view while preserving the record and avoiding the viewpoint-deletion problem.
• Open selectively. Keep comments on for the tangible, community content that thrives on them — events, recognitions, infrastructure updates — and reserve restrictions for genuinely hot-button posts.
• Batch your moderation. A set check-in window or built-in keyword filters can make an open comment section manageable for even a one-person shop.

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