A lot of online content needs careful content moderation to ensure accurate and up-to-date information. For this, businesses and individuals need to employ online content moderation services.
What is an online content moderator?
A content moderator is someone responsible for keeping online content organized and updated. It includes editing content on an online platform to ensure its usefulness and timeliness.
It is also the job of a content moderator to filter people who interact with online content they oversee to prevent the accumulation of spam and suspicious links.
Additionally, a content moderator ensures any information displayed on the website or page they are moderating is appropriate and in line with the content guidelines and policies.
It is also their responsibility to keep online communities welcoming to encourage a healthy exchange of ideas between members.
What kind of content needs moderating?
A lot of online content needs proper content moderation. Here are some of the most common:
Spam
Spam can take a variety of forms. These can be long posts, messages, or comments that are off-topic or do not offer any value for the website or the people visiting it.
It can also be a series of similar emoticons or images posted in the comment section of a group or a website.
Spam also includes posts or comments with links that can potentially carry malware or lead to sites abundant with malware.
In any case, spam requires speedy content moderation to ensure relevant reactions, comments, and posts remain visible for people to see and interact with.
Pornography
Unless pornography is the bread and butter of a business entity, content moderation is essential to remove unnecessary adult content or comments posted on a website or page.
Pornographic content can sometimes come with malware that can compromise your system. Even if the material does not carry malicious software variants, it can still link you to websites that can potentially have malware.
Malware aside, content moderation may still be needed as inappropriate material on a website or page might go against community standards.
Allowing or tolerating such posts can penalize the website or page. At worst, the website or page can be shut down, leading to a loss of revenue for the business.
Political/religious content
The advent of social media has encouraged people to be more outspoken and passionate in their opinions. While this can be considered a progressive development, sometimes people can be too aggressive when sharing their points of view. After all, there are mostly no direct consequences to the person doing it.
This kind of behavior is common in political and religious topics. Some people tend to resort to ad hominem attacks on anyone who disagrees with their beliefs, whether it is based on facts or misguided.
That said, it is a content moderator’s job to filter out these kinds of conversations as they tend to become excessively toxic. While some avenues or channels are solely dedicated to such topics, passionate discussions can sometimes still lead to unpleasant exchanges between people, and this requires quick content moderation.
Bait posts
Bait posts are online content containing information that can solicit unpleasant reactions from people in the online community.
This can take many forms such as questions with very obvious answers, seemingly ignorant remarks, offensive comments or memes, and many more.
Among the above-mentioned online content that moderators handle, determining bait posts can be one of the most challenging. After all, it can be hard to tell if a particular online content is genuine or expressed with malicious intent.
Only with experience can an online content moderator distinguish between the two, as well as the proper way to implement proper content moderation.
Suspected malware content
These are online posts or contents that can potentially infect the system of anyone interacting with it. It can be anything from an online advertisement posted in the comments section, pornographic material visible to everyone visiting the website, or even a seemingly harmless post with a link included in it.
While many of these suspicious online content can simply be deleted, some exceptions can cause an error as they remain on the website or page. In such cases, an online content moderator may require the assistance of the website administrator to enforce the necessary content moderation.
What are the common functions in online content moderation?
Online content moderators have the authority to enforce website or community rules through the use of content moderation functions. Note, however, that varying online platforms may differ in terms of available tools for content moderation.
Mute
Content moderators can use the mute function on community members for a given period. This locks out a member’s ability to create and share and comment on posts. While they can still react to posts and comments, they can no longer add comments or post any content on the website until the mute expires.
Lock online content
Sometimes, particular content may already have excessive comments or reactions, flooding other relevant interactions. Perhaps, the conversations started on a positive note but are now slowly turning toxic.
In such cases, the online content moderator can lock that particular content. This means that people can no longer comment or edit their replies to the post. They may still be able to react to individual comments on the posts, but that is just about it.
This particular content moderation function is great, especially if a business, individual, or community would want to preserve any positive discussions on specific online content.
Pin
Online content moderators are also responsible for creating rules and guidelines for websites, groups, and online communities. An efficient content moderation function to notify people of these is by pinning.
Pinned posts are always the first things that page visitors or members see when they visit online communities or websites. This content moderation function helps ensure quick access to a website’s guidelines and regulations.
Ban
Aside from regulating countless online content, content moderators can also ban members and, in some cases, ban or block the IP address of any offending member or account. This is to help ensure a healthy online environment for other page visitors or members.
Banning also helps lessen online toxicity deliberately brought about by troublemakers. This content moderation will keep them from causing further damage to both websites and the community in the form of malware.
As online communities grow and evolve, proper content moderation continues to play a big role in achieving a sustainable and positive online environment.
