Unsung Heroes: Operators on the Front Lines of Internet Safety

One might ask, what exactly do content moderators do? To answer that question, let’s start at the top.

What is content moderation?

Although the term moderation Often misunderstood, its central goal is clear — evaluating user-generated content for its potential to cause harm to others. When it comes to content, moderation is the act of preventing extreme or malicious behavior, such as offensive language, exposure to objectionable images or videos, and fraud or abuse of users.

There are six types of content moderation:

1. No censorship: No monitoring or tampering with content where bad guys can harm others
2. Pre-Censorship: Content is screened before going live based on predetermined guidelines
3. Post-censorship: Content is screened after going live and removed if deemed inappropriate
4. Moderation of reactions: Content is screened only if other users report it
5. Automatic moderation: Content is actively filtered and removed using AI-powered automation
6. Distributed moderation: Inappropriate content is removed based on votes from multiple community members

Why is content moderation important to companies?

Malicious and illegal behavior by bad actors puts companies at significant risk in the following ways:

• Loss of reputation and brand reputation
• Exposing vulnerable audiences, like children, to harmful content
• Failing to protect customers from fraudulent activity
• Losing customers to competitors can provide a safer experience
• Allow fake or impersonation accounts

However, the importance of content moderation goes far beyond protecting businesses. Managing and removing sensitive and critical content is important for all ages.

Since many third-party trust and safety service experts can attest, a multi-pronged approach is needed to mitigate the widest range of risks. Content moderators must use both preventive and proactive measures to maximize user safety and protect brand trust. In today’s highly social and political online environment, taking the “no censorship” approach of waiting and watching is no longer an option.

“The virtue of justice consists in moderation, conditioned by wisdom.” – Aristotle

Why is human content moderator so important?

Many types of content moderation involve human intervention at some point. However, reactive censorship and distributed censorship are not ideal approaches, as harmful content is not addressed until it is exposed to the user. Post-censorship offers an alternative approach, where AI-powered algorithms monitor content for specific risk factors and then alert moderators to verify whether certain posts are viewed. , the image or video is actually harmful and should be removed. With machine learning, the accuracy of these algorithms will improve over time.

While it would be ideal to eliminate the need for human content moderators, given the nature of the content they are exposed to (including child sexual abuse material, violent imagery, and abusive behavior). other harmful online), but this is unlikely. Human understanding, comprehension, interpretation, and empathy simply cannot be reproduced through artificial means. These human qualities are essential to maintaining integrity and authenticity in communication. In reality, 90% of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support (up from 86% in 2017).