Last week I wrote about the sting of real-time product feedback and how Domino’s appeared to be filtering out some tweets that were being displayed in a feed on their homepage. Some commenters pointed out to me that a few of the tweets might have been removed for having offensive or questionable content. While I don’t necessarily think that “projectile vomiting” is inappropriate to display (hyperbolic, yes, but still valid feedback), I can make the case for filtering out a user named “cyberphucker” for a family-friendly website. Still, other comments that were safe for work appeared to be removed, but I won’t get into that right now. What I do want to talk about is when you can justify removing user-generated content. Below I’ve outlined different exceptions where deleting comments, reviews or feedback is justified.

  1. Profanity. Depending on the type of site you have and the type of target audience you strive to attract, you may not want your pages littered with F-bombs or other expletives. If you have a blog, a good course of action would be to have a comment policy outlined that’s easily viewable and accessible for your users. You can opt to edit comments along with a small footnote like “edited for profanity” and let first offenders squeak by. Repeat offenders can have their comments deleted altogether or can be banned for not adhering to your guidelines. With tweets, reviews and other content you may not be able to edit, you can remove the content but, as with the blog guidelines, make sure you have a comment policy or participation guidelines clearly outlined somewhere on your page or site (e.g., displaying your Twitter feed in a sidebar and underneath it saying “Profane or vulgar tweets will be removed”).
  2. Offensive remarks. As with profanity, depending on the nature of your site you may not tolerate comments that are misogynistic, homophobic, racist, etc. Make sure you state that this type of content won’t be allowed and are grounds for removal/deletion.
  3. Spam. No-brainer here — spam comments, whether they’re obvious (“Hi buy Viagra here cheap online”) or slightly more subtle (“Great post! I totally agree that [insert somewhat post-related comment here]” left by “BuyViagra”), can and should get removed.
  4. Trolls. If you see the same user come in and flood your blog, forum, Twitter feed, etc. with useless, negative remarks that are in no way constructive (e.g., “Your company sucks and so does your product”), that person’s probably a troll and you’re getting no value out of his contributions (genuine feedback, constructive criticism, etc).
  5. Threats and personal attacks. Something like “I’m going to eat your babies and make a suit out of your skin” probably isn’t helpful. Regarding personal attacks, there’s a difference between “You’re an idiot” and “Upon reading your post, I think you’re an idiot because [rebuttal #1, #2, #3, etc), so this could be tricky as sometimes you can interpret a harsh critique as a personal attack.

If you have a personal blog or want to run your company however you see fit, you can obviously make up your own rules about what you approve and what you reject or delete. I’ve personally left critical comments on people’s blogs that weren’t offensive and have been disappointed to see that they never made it out of the moderation queue — some people just don’t like to be painted in a negative light and will adjust user feedback accordingly.

However, if you’re a brand who prides yourself on listening to your customers and taking their feedback seriously, you have to be able to stomach the not-so-nice remarks. Comments like “This necklace is cheap and broke when I tried adjusting it,” “The new car design is ugly as can be,” “The new recipe made me gag,” “You don’t know what you’re talking about…”, etc., while unpleasant to receive, can actually make you and your business better if you can push aside the hurt feelings and think about what you can derive from these critiques in order to improve your product, your customer service, your researching skills, whatever it is you’re marketing.

What do you guys think? When do you think it’s okay to remove user-generated content, and when should you leave it be? Share your thoughts below!