[FAQ]

My account has started getting a bit more attention recently, and I just received my first really nasty comment that was clearly just from a troll. It wasn’t constructive criticism, just someone trying to be mean.

I’m not sure what the best practice is here. My gut reaction is to just delete the comment and block the user, but I’ve read that deleting comments can hurt your engagement. What do you all do? Is it better to ignore them, reply with something clever, or just go ahead and block? I don’t want to encourage more of them or mess up my video’s standing with the algorithm. Any advice would be great.

[Jeff Bullas]

This is a common issue.

Direct Answer: The most effective method is to not engage at all. Simply delete the troll’s comment and block the user’s account immediately.

Your goal is to protect your community’s space and your own peace of mind, not to win an argument or boost engagement through conflict.

Let’s be clear about the algorithm fears: the negative impact of deleting a single toxic comment is completely negligible. The platform provides moderation tools for a reason, and you should feel confident using them. The best way to handle a genuine troll involves a two-step process that you should execute without replying. First, you delete the comment so it is no longer visible on your content. Second, you block the account so that individual can no longer interact with any of your future videos. Any reply, whether clever or angry, is the attention the troll wants and simply encourages more of this behaviour. For a more proactive strategy, you should utilise TikTok’s comment filtering tools to automatically hide comments that contain specific keywords you choose, which can prevent a good deal of offensive content from ever appearing publicly.

Cheers,

Jeff

[Author]

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