How to Turn Off HTML in WordPress Comments Completely

By default, WordPress allows certain HTML tags in comments, like <a>, <em>, and <strong>. Unfortunately, a lot of spam comments also use these tags. Most of these spam comments are created by bots and scripts that rely on HTML tags. Disabling HTML in WordPress comments can help reduce spam. This guide will show you how to disable HTML tags in WordPress comments.

This method will disable active HTML tags. For example, if someone posts:

html

php

// This will occur when the comment is posted

function plc_comment_post($incoming_comment)

{

// Convert everything in a comment to display literally

$incoming_comment[‘comment_content’] = htmlspecialchars($incoming_comment[‘comment_content’]);

// The one exception is single quotes, which cannot be #039; because WordPress marks it as spam $incoming_comment[‘comment_content’] = str_replace( “‘”, ‘'’, $incoming_comment[‘comment_content’] ); return $incoming_comment;

}

// This will occur before a comment is displayed

function plc_comment_display($comment_to_display)

{

// Put the single quotes back in

$comment_to_display = str_replace( ‘'’, “‘”, $comment_to_display );

return $comment_to_display;

}

Using a Plugin Instead

If you don’t want to manually add this code, there is a plugin available that does the same job. You can install and activate the “Peter’s Literal Comments” plugin.

This method is preferable because it doesn’t require changes to the core WordPress files. If you do want to edit core files, you can modify the wp-includes/kses.php file, but this is not recommended.

How to Turn Off HTML in WordPress Comments Completely

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