It’s Time to Silence That Super Annoying Troll – Once & For All!
Social media has given everyone a voice, but it has also given everyone the opportunity to troll, spam and simply go into business for themselves all over your organization’s timeline. Facebook Business isn’t perfect, obviously, so these nefarious folks have found a way (or just stumbled into a way) to bypass the simple “Ban a Person” function and spam up your comments section on the daily.
But no more! Be gone, Troll!
Here is your step-by-step guide to blocking a person from a Facebook Business page who hasn’t liked it in 2020.
Strategy 1: The Easier, Updated Version
- Log into your Facebook Business page
- Click Page Settings on the left, at the bottom
- Head to the People & Others Pages tab
- Hit the drop-down menu & select “Banned People & Pages.”
- Hit the +Ban A Person button.
- Take their vanity URL aka whatever their unique FB profile URL is, put it in the search & it should pop up with their name & stupid, ugly photo; only take the numbers & letters after the slash, as shown below:
- Smash that Save button & they should be gone (it may take a minute or so to kick in, however)
Note: The person will be able to see the page still, but they can’t like things, comment or spread hate.
Strategy 2: The Previous, More Complicated Version
- Open Facebook in your Chrome browser & go to your business/organization’s page
- Do the same in another tab
- Find the profile of the person who has been spamming your page & click on them
- Once the page loads, right-click & hit “View Page Source”
- Do a command+search for “entity_ID” in the source code & copy the code that follows immediately after; it should look something like “100007362189555”
- Go to the other Facebook tab you have open
- Click “Settings” in the top right corner
- Click “People and other Pages”
- Once here, go to the URL bar, double-click it & then replace “www.” with “m.,” so the URL goes from – https://www.facebook.com/YourSuperCoolBusiness/settings/?tab=people_and_other_pages to https://m.facebook.com/YourSuperCoolBusiness/settings/?tab=people_and_other_pages (this opens the page in a mobile version, necessary for the next steps)
- Go to the first person on the list, hover over the “Ban” button, right-click & select “Inspect Element”
- Right-click the blue box of code highlighted by the browser & select “Edit as HTML”
- Find the section where it says “"userID":"0000000000"” then highlight the numbers & paste the User ID code from that dastardly spammer
- Click outside of the source code box (this is critical) & then close out of the inspect element box
- Click “Ban”
- Assure Facebook that you want to “Ban” that person (note: it’s going to look like you’re banning an innocent person, but you shouldn’t be if you did it correctly)
- Refresh the page to make sure the innocent person you banned is still there
- Click the blue bar at the top that says “People Who Like This Page” & go to “Banned People & Pages”
- Make sure the spammer person is there & you’re good!
The major “hack” here is tricking the Facebook Business platform into thinking this person has already liked your page. Yes, you could just click “Ban A Person” from the “People And Other Pages” dialogue box, but we’re guessing you already crossed that off your list! We’ve found that, because of specific privacy rights, people aren’t always searchable in these boxes – after all, what troll wants to be held accountable for what they say on the Internet?
Isn’t This “Anti-Social Media?”
No. We’re not much for stifling free speech, but when there’s a troll out there who exists for the sole purpose of spreading misinformation or cursing at random digital passers-by? Nope. Not on our watch. Don’t sit at the table if you’re bringing nothing of value to it.
Have additional questions about shutting down trolls, social media management or literally anything digital marketing or web design?
