Our commenting and moderation policy

The CFPB blog aims to facilitate conversations about the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We want your comments to drive this conversation, but, of course, we also expect your comments to be courteous, constructive, and related to our core mission, which is consumer financial protection. To help make the conversation productive, CFPB has adopted the following policy:

  • Topics: This is a moderated blog and should contain only comments that relate to our consumer financial protection mission. We will not engage in viewpoint discrimination, but we reserve the right not to post, or to remove after posting, comments that:
    1. Contain abusive, vulgar, offensive, threatening, or harassing language;
    2. Contain language that would violate the law if published;
    3. Contain threats, personal attacks, hate speech or defamatory statements;
    4. Contain copyrighted or other proprietary material without clear indication of permission to copy the material from the original source;
    5. Suggest or encourage illegal activity;
    6. Are repetitive postings or “spam”;
    7. Are off-topic of the blog posting; or
    8. Promote or endorse a commenter’s own commercial services, products, or entities.
  • Moderation: Comments on the CFPB blog will appear directly under the post you are commenting on, but they will be hosted on the Disqus platform, which enables users to “flag” for moderation comments they believe violate CFPB’s blog comment policy or contain personally identifiable information. Our site will also automatically flag words commonly associated with spam and strings of numbers that resemble phone numbers or social security numbers. Any comments that are automatically flagged will be reviewed by CFPB before posting. CFPB will review flagged comments within one business day and will either re-post the flagged comments that do not violate CFPB’s policy or will remove them from the site. Records will be kept of all comments removed from the site.
  • Organization: Readers may have the option to “like” or “dislike” comments. This will allow readers to prioritize the comments most preferred by others. Please remember, reader comments and preferences reflect the views of the comment authors and do not reflect the official views of CFPB or the federal government.
  • Time Limits: All blog posts will automatically stop accepting comments after seven days.
  • Privacy: Please remember that any information you provide will be available to the general public. CFPB will not collect any personally identifiable information from blog comments. Should any personal information be included in a blog comment, CFPB will not sell it, nor will CFPB share it except as permitted by law. To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, please do not include phone numbers, e-mail addresses, or other personal information in the body of your comment. For complete information, please read our Privacy Policy Page and Disqus’ Privacy Page.
  • CFPB comments: From time to time, CFPB staff will write comments, and we will always clearly identify ourselves when doing so. This does not mean we agree or disagree with another commenter. The goal of CFPB staff comments is to answer specific questions or to make sure the conversation stays productive and on topic.
  • Product references: From time to time, this blog or comments may refer to commercial or nongovernmental entities, products, services, or individuals. Those references do not reflect the opinion of or endorsement by CFPB, the United States Government, or its officers or employees. Please do not quote or reproduce these references for the purpose of stating or implying such an endorsement or approval.
  • Records: Comments may be treated as federal records subject to the Federal Records Act and maintained consistent with that Act. This blog comment policy is subject to amendment and modification at any time to ensure the blog’s continued use is consistent with its intended purpose as a limited forum. CFPB will announce any amendments or modifications in a new blog post.

Of course, the comments section of a blog post may not be the right place for everything you may want to tell us. The following are other ways to speak your mind to us:

  • Off topic comments: We’re setting up a special Off Topic Comments page (coming soon).
  • Questions about this blog or communications with CFPB directly: Use our Let Us Know page.
  • Public comment periods for proposed regulatory actions: If this blog discusses a proposed action that requires a public comment period, we’ll tell you how to leave a formal comment. Blog comments will help drive our conversation, but they cannot be considered formal public comments on proposed actions.

Consumer complaints:Please do not submit consumer complaints in the comments section of this blog. When our consumer response system is operational, we will inform you how to effectively submit a complaint. Information posted on this blog is not official policy of CFPB, will not constitute legal or official notice or comment to CFPB, and will in no way grant anyone any rights, privileges or standing on any matter. For more information on consumer complaints, visit our consumer questions and complaints page.