Automated content moderation – here’s how it helps brands
When you consider that every minute of everyday Facebook users alone share over 240,000 photos it’s easy to see that it can be hard for brands to keep pace with the unprecedented volume of user-generated content (UGC). 79 percent of people say UGC highly affects their purchasing decisions, highlighting just how important it is to ensure UGC is managed to effectively promote and uphold brand values. But how can brands monitor and manage large volumes of unstructured content while also mitigating unnecessary costs? Blending automated with live agent content moderation could be the answer.
Content moderation is the process of reviewing, screening and filtering content related to your business including, but not limited to, social media content. Content moderation ensures that the information published related to your brand by third parties is not only accurate but also that it is aligned to your brand values and adheres to legal requirements, helping you to achieve your overall business goals.
Why brands must moderate third-party content to promote trust and safety
Amid growing concerns over misinformation and hate speech discussion platforms and service review sites face increasing pressure to govern online communication, whether to abide by legal requirements or simply to create welcoming environments free from bullying or harassment. As consumers increasingly turn to UGC to access what they perceive to be a more authentic experience of a brand and its products, few organizations can afford not to encourage consumers to share their opinions online.
Content on channels you own for example, reviews of your product posted to your e-commerce site, as well as content posted to platforms you do not own such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram must be carefully monitored, managed and responded to ensuring third-party content supports and promotes your brand values.
Understanding automated content moderation
Automated moderation leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to review and accept, refuse or create actions associated with any user-generated content given to an online platform based on the platform’s specific rules and guidelines.
Automated moderation enables brands to effortlessly moderate high volumes of content at speed, ensuring quality user-generated content goes live instantly while also enabling brands to ensure their consumers have a safe and positive environment to interact in.
Automated content moderation is not an alternative to live agent moderators. Rather it is a supporting tool that streamlines the workload offering brands speed and scale by filtering out content that clearly violates guidelines, such as hate speech, bullying or harassment and prioritizing content that may violate guidelines for human review. By blending AI-driven automated content moderation with live moderators, brands can help limit the burden carried by live agents as they deliver their essential work.
Types of automated content moderation
There are three common types of content moderation that brands can explore.
- Pre-moderation - it’s precisely that - content is moderated before it is posted. Pre-moderation ensures that inappropriate content is flagged and kept from being posted. While it enables a high degree of control over what content ends up being displayed, this approach also means content is not displayed in real-time, which may negatively impacting the user experience.
- Post-moderation - an alternative to pre-moderation, post-moderation allows users to upload their content in real-time, without waiting for their submissions to be approved by a moderator.
Instead, this replicates the queue to the moderator’s list after the content is posted and then filters out any violating and inappropriate content from the viewer’s page. - Reactive moderation - this type of content moderation puts the responsibility on the user community to flag and report inappropriate content. It can be used alongside pre- and post-content moderation techniques and is an extra layer addressing anything that gets past the moderators. The main advantage of this moderation type is that you can scale alongside your community growth without putting extra strain on your moderation resources.
Benefits of automated content moderation
Automated decision-making is increasingly used to decide what content qualifies for additional trust and safety screening. Technological innovation has made it possible to automate elements of the moderation process and brands must review the benefits.
Engage customers in real-time - imagine waiting for days before your content goes live on your e-commerce platform because it is dependent on a human moderator for review - sounds disengaging, right? Automation resolves this challenge, reducing time and effort for the brand. Algorithms enable the moderation process to become ever faster and more efficient. Content that is undoubtedly harmful or illegal is removed instantly, while end-users enjoy the immediacy of online content in a safe environment.
Scale campaigns - The digital world doesn't just demand speed; it needs to be scaled. As your brand grows you need a cost-efficient moderation solution. Brands that embrace automated content moderation create the opportunity for their digital platforms to grow while minimizing their costs, offering increased support for live moderators and renewing their commitment to security standards that strengthen their trust and safety initiatives.
Safeguard trust and mitigate the risk - an unimaginable quantity of content is published every minute. It’s a herculean task for brands to keep tabs on everything being shared. Effective content moderation can protect customers and brands against content and policy violations and mitigate risks to online trust and safety.
What sort of content can brands moderate automatically?
Visual, textual and content with moving images can be a part of automated moderation.
- Computer vision can help automated platforms to find inappropriate content in images through a mechanism called object detection.
- Algorithms can recognize the meaning of text and perform sentiment analysis and show keywords within the textual context. In addition, algorithms can screen for bullying, harassment, copyrighted text, fraudulent text, spam and scams.
- Video moderation uses computer vision to find inappropriate video content. Automated content moderation is applicable even for live streaming, where screening takes place in real-time.
Online communities, reviews and forums enable users to connect with like-minded people across the world to offer support, reviews and opinions. Unfortunately, the same spaces that offer connection and camaraderie can also be used to promote hate and division. To protect their community spaces, brands must have effective content moderation practices in place.
Automated content moderation is an essential part of the content moderation tool kit, filtering out offensive and inappropriate content and prioritizing content for live agent moderators.