Title: Potential harm in comments?
Last modified: August 31, 2016

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# Potential harm in comments?

 *  [Gibbon355](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gibbon355/)
 * (@gibbon355)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/potential-harm-in-comments/)
 * Besides the clutter of spam, is there any way comments can be harmful to a WordPress
   site? For example, posting some kind of code that’s malicious?
 * I want individuals to have uncensored freedom to post and I can get an anti-spam
   plugin. Am I missing any potential problems of limited moderation other than 
   vile posts and occasional spam that an anti-spam program does not catch?

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  [catacaustic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/catacaustic/)
 * (@catacaustic)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/potential-harm-in-comments/#post-7279405)
 * If you allow _completely_ unfiltered text, then yes, it’s very easy to post something
   harmful.
 * The main culprit would be JavaScript, which can cause some serious isuses, but
   depending on how your site is set up you may also have PHP code added that executes
   on your server, and that woudl be somewhere close to catastrpohic.
 *  Thread Starter [Gibbon355](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gibbon355/)
 * (@gibbon355)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/potential-harm-in-comments/#post-7279413)
 * Catacaustic, do the default WordPress settings catch javascript or php? Is there
   something that has to be checked under Discussion Settings or are there plugins
   I could get?
 * I basically want a comment section like Google blogspots where people can choose
   certain identities like Facebook, WordPress, etc… or be anonymous:
 * [http://robinlynsey.blogspot.com/2015/11/possum.html#comment-form](http://robinlynsey.blogspot.com/2015/11/possum.html#comment-form)(
   not my site)
 * I’m planning on getting Anti-Spam by CleanTalk for spam but what plugin would
   look like Google Blogspot and also catch malicious code?
 *  [catacaustic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/catacaustic/)
 * (@catacaustic)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/potential-harm-in-comments/#post-7279415)
 * The standard WordPres systems only allow some basic HTML tags, and will strip
   out anything that’s JavaScript or PHP. On top of that PHP won’t run in a comment
   section unless you install a plugin that specifically tells it too, which is 
   a very bad idea.
 * As far as choosing who you’re commenting as, that’s a very different thing. There
   might be some plugins out there that enable that, but I haven’t gone looking 
   for them so hopefully someone else out there may have some morr idea than I do.
 *  Thread Starter [Gibbon355](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gibbon355/)
 * (@gibbon355)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/potential-harm-in-comments/#post-7279422)
 * Ok, Thanks. Seems like I’d have to go really out of my way to have a scenario
   where someone could type in effective Javascript or php in the comment section.
 * Please comment if anyone knows how I can get my comments to look like:
    [http://robinlynsey.blogspot.com/2015/11/possum.html#comment-form](http://robinlynsey.blogspot.com/2015/11/possum.html#comment-form)
 * Basically a Google Blogspot look.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘Potential harm in comments?’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Everything else WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/miscellaneous/)
 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Gibbon355](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gibbon355/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/potential-harm-in-comments/#post-7279422)
 * Status: not resolved

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