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Every 15 minutes

Hide abusive comments and flag negative ones

Abuse disappears from your posts within 15 minutes, and genuine complaints reach Slack for a reply.

Runs
Every 15 minutes
Apps
Instagram
AI
Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access
instagram_business_manage_comments

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 15 minutes, check new Instagram comments. Hide abusive or hateful ones, and post negative comments to #social in Slack so we can reply.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A skincare brand runs a giveaway post, and within an hour the comments include spam links, a few insults aimed at the founder, and one customer saying her order arrived damaged. Abusive comments left visible drive away potential buyers and make loyal followers uncomfortable, while genuine complaints buried between them wait for days. Reading every comment manually is not realistic for a two-person team.

Every 15 minutes, ClickRuntime pulls new comments on your Instagram posts and has built-in AI classify each one as fine, negative or abusive. Abusive comments are hidden using Instagram's comment hiding, and negative ones are posted to a Slack channel with the comment text and a link so a person can respond.

Brands running ads or giveaways, where comments arrive in waves, tend to get the most value from it.

What you get out of it

  • Abuse is hidden before many people see it

    Hiding a hateful comment within minutes keeps it from becoming the first thing new visitors read. The community stays welcoming without you refreshing the post throughout the day. New followers and prospects arriving from a giveaway see a tidy thread, which affects whether they follow or leave.

  • Real complaints reach a human

    A comment saying the order arrived damaged is a support issue. Sending negative comments to Slack makes sure a person answers publicly or follows up privately, which can turn an angry customer into a satisfied one.

  • Ad comment sections stay presentable

    Paid posts attract strangers who judge a brand by what is under the ad. Quick hiding of spam and insults keeps the comment section from undermining the money spent promoting the post.

  • Team members are spared the worst

    Reading abusive messages every day wears people down. When the hiding happens automatically, community managers see only the negative comments that need a considered response. Your team keeps its attention for the replies where a thoughtful human answer makes a difference to a customer.

  • Hidden comments remain recoverable

    Hiding is not deleting, so a comment can be restored if the classification was wrong. That makes it a safer action than removal, and you keep the original text for reports to Instagram.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every 15 minutes, ClickRuntime checks your recent Instagram posts for new comments. Comments it has already checked are skipped.

  2. AI reads each new comment and decides whether it is fine, negative or abusive.

  3. Abusive comments are hidden on Instagram straight away.

  4. Negative comments are posted to your Slack channel with the commenter's name, what they said and a link to the post, so someone can reply.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Instagram

What you get

RunsEvery 15 minutes
Hide abusive comments and flag negative onestoday, 9:00Succeeded
Slack · #socialNegative comment from @plantlover22: "Arrived late and the recipe card was missing" https://www.instagram.com/p/C9xNorthwind/

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
  • Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Instagram steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
ai_comment_sentiment_moderation_alert.pyexample
from clickruntime import on_trigger, report_fetched, state, notify, http, credentials, ai

GRAPH = "https://graph.facebook.com/v21.0"
IG_ID = "17841400000000000"  # your Instagram business account id

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    token = credentials.connection("instagram", "main")
    seen = set(state.get("seen") or [])
    media = http.get(f"{GRAPH}/{IG_ID}/media", params={"fields": "id,permalink", "limit": 10, "access_token": token}).json()["data"]
    new = []
    for m in media:
        comments = http.get(f"{GRAPH}/{m['id']}/comments", params={"fields": "id,text,username", "access_token": token}).json()["data"]
        new += [dict(c, link=m["permalink"]) for c in comments if c["id"] not in seen]
    report_fetched(len(new))
    if not new:
        return {"summary": "No new comments"}
    for c in new:
        label = ai.generate(f"Label this Instagram comment as abusive, negative or ok. Reply with one word.\n\n{c['text'][:500]}", max_output_tokens=5).text.strip().lower()
        if label == "abusive":
            http.post(f"{GRAPH}/{c['id']}", params={"hide": "true", "access_token": token})
        elif label == "negative":
            notify.slack(f"Negative comment from @{c['username']}: {c['text']}\n{c['link']}", channel="#social")
        seen.add(c["id"])
    state.set("seen", list(seen)[-2000:])
    return {"checked": len(new)}

FAQ

Common questions

What does Instagram hiding a comment actually do?
A hidden comment is no longer visible to other people, but the author and their followers can still see it, so they are not alerted. You can unhide it later. It is gentler than deleting, which cannot be undone.
How accurate is the AI at telling abuse from criticism?
It is good at obvious abuse and spam, and less certain with sarcasm or in-jokes. Only abusive comments are hidden, while negative ones go to people for review, so a wrongly judged criticism ends up in Slack instead of vanishing.
Does it need an Instagram professional account?
Yes. Comment management through the API is available for Instagram Business or Creator accounts connected to a Facebook Page. A personal account cannot be connected, so check that your account is converted before setting this up.
What permissions does it need?
instagram_business_manage_comments. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
Yes. It uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI, so you don't need an OpenAI or Anthropic key. Every plan includes a monthly AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Hide abusive comments and flag negative ones” from your assistant

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