The Inner Workings of Content Moderation Services

How content moderation services work. ✓ Difference between manual and automated content moderation. ✓ Challenges in content moderation.

10:36 28 March 2024

Anyone on the internet is at risk of seeing inappropriate content, whether it is a hate post, a disturbing image, or a graphic video. The scope of content that requires content moderation services is boundless, and the challenge of handling all types of online media is an emerging problem.

Creating a safe and enjoyable online environment should be every company’s goal. User engagement can easily decline if they are constantly exposed to explicit content or encounter trolls and bullies online.

As a consumer, how can you be safe on the internet? What measures do companies take to moderate harmful content on their platforms?

Introduction to Content Moderation Services

Content moderation has been around for decades. From moderating chat rooms, human moderators have transitioned to regulating websites, social media platforms, and messaging apps. 

Content moderation involves screening content published by users in real-time. Depending on the platform’s guidelines, content moderators make judgment calls, such as flagging or removing content, banning users, or reporting to authorities.

Content moderation is beneficial to businesses that profit from online engagement. Users who have positive online experiences are more likely to share their encounters and recommend the brand. This helps companies form long-lasting relationships with their customers and establish brand loyalty through online communities.

Manual vs Automated Content Moderation

Nowadays, content moderation companies employ a combined approach using manual and automated moderation techniques. Let’s look at the differences between these two methods:

Manual Content Moderation

In manual moderation, human moderators are responsible for reviewing user-generated content (UGC) across all digital platforms. They manually check each content for compliance with community guidelines and take the necessary actions once a violation is identified.

• Advantages 

Accurate moderation results, contextual adaptability, and higher-quality moderation practices

• Disadvantages

Expensive, slow process, and risk of employee stress and burnout

Automated Content Moderation

Meanwhile, automated content moderation uses advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to speed up scanning and removing harmful texts, images, videos, and other forms of content on a platform.

• Advantages

Cost-effective, real-time monitoring, speed and efficiency, scalability, and reduces human workload and stress

• Disadvantages

Prone to inaccurate results, Unrepresentative datasets and algorithmic biases, and contextual misunderstanding

To compensate for the lapses of each method, companies blend manual moderation with automated systems. A human moderator oversees the process to ensure the rules and regulations are properly implemented.

Types of Content Moderation Services

If you’re wondering how to stay safe online through content moderation, let’s take a look at the various types of content moderation services:

• Text and Chat Moderation

Chats and comments allow users to express their ideas and opinions and have a sense of community. 

In text and chat moderation, chat discussions, forums, and online communities are managed and supervised to regulate hate speech, profanity, and other inappropriate language. It also deals with spam messages that trick users into sharing their personal information and bank details. 

• Image and Video Moderation

In addition to written content, users also post images and videos online to share their experiences. However, not all visual content is safe and suitable for a brand’s target audience.

Using human and AI capabilities, image and text video moderation screen photos and videos that violate platform guidelines. These may include content that contains graphic, sexual, violent, or disturbing imagery.

• Social Media Moderation

Social media is an integral aspect of business marketing strategies. Nowadays, brands utilize Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms to promote their products and services. In fact, around 96% of small businesses incorporate social media in their marketing techniques. 

Through social media moderation, public posts or comments are filtered before publication. This allows users to interact safely with fellow consumers and the brand itself.

• User-Generated Content Moderation

Today, around 87% of businesses utilize UGC in their marketing strategy to show authenticity and attract more audiences. When consumers encounter genuine posts and reviews, there’s a higher chance that they will engage with the brand.

UGC moderation combines text, chat, image, and video moderation techniques to effectively filter UGC. This method promotes positive online experiences and reduces the risk of unwanted content tarnishing the brand’s image.

• Profile Moderation

In digital media, users cannot always distinguish between real and fake profiles. Thus, this poses a massive threat to their data privacy and online security.

Through profile moderation services,fake profiles and duplicate accounts that may threaten other users’ safety can be removed from the platform. This ensures that all profiles are created by real users with no ulterior motives.

Challenges in Content Moderation

Content moderation is not always smooth and straightforward. It also has its own set of challenges. Some of these include:

1. Volume and Diversity of Content

Posts, comments, photos, and videos are uploaded to the Internet every second. The sheer volume of content that moderators have to manage every day is staggering. Additionally, all content that needs to be moderated varies in format and context, which can be a time-consuming task.

1. Contextual Ambiguity

Making moderation decisions based on cultural nuances and global sensitivities can also be particularly challenging. This can lead to misinterpretations and errors in judgment calls.

1. Balancing Freedom of Speech and User Safety

It is a perpetual challenge to strike the right balance between user’s freedom of speech and online safety. To navigate this fine line, platforms must establish clear policies while still respecting diverse opinions and ideas.

Embracing the Future with Content Moderation

In today’s digital age, where internet users are skyrocketing and online channels are evolving, the demand for content moderation services continues to grow exponentially.

To combat existing and emerging challenges in content moderation, it is important for businesses to understand new content formats and embrace new technologies like AI to protect both users and online platforms.