Facebook Takes Steps on Bullying, Harassment With Keyword Blocks

Facebook Inc. will start letting users block certain offensive or unwanted comments from their posts by selecting keywords they don’t want to see.

The new tool is one of Facebook’s efforts to improve people’s experience on the site. The move comes long after similar efforts by other social media platforms. Facebook-owned Instagram and Twitter Inc. both introduced keyword-blocking features in 2016.

Facebook is tackling the effects of bullying now that it’s focusing on not just increasing activity on the site, but the quality of interactions — sometimes at the expense of engagement. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said this year that he ...