Category: Content Moderation

Did you know that around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are uploaded to the Internet every single day? That is A LOT of data comprising good and bad content. This makes content moderation a growing necessity to make this huge volume of content appropriate for all. As a leading AI company in North America, Opporture has been at the forefront of cutting-edge content moderation services to ensure that the digital world is a much safe and secure place. Now, let’s dive deeper into the world of content moderation and why it is a necessity in the current digital scenario. Content Moderation: What is it & Why is it So Important? As we know, digital media content can be broadly classified into informative, useful, user-friendly, age-appropriate content and harmful, misleading, and negatively-impactful content. Essentially, content moderation is regulating digital content and keeping it well within the standards and guidelines issued by online platforms. The process involves: Reviewing and monitoring of user-generated content Removing inappropriate and offensive content Enforcing community guidelines and terms of service Today, all online platforms that thrive on user-generated content consider content moderation a mandatory lifeline. They include: Social media platforms Dating sites Communities Online forums Sharing economy E-commerce marketplaces Generally, content moderation is done using a team of human moderators, automated tools, or AI-powered technologies. Irrespective of the method, all user-generated content will require effective moderation to remove illegal, harmful, or copyrighted content. It goes without saying that AI-driven moderation is the most potent option to speed up the review process and scale the overall operation. What is AI-powered content moderation?  As we have seen already, with the growing amount of content generated every day, human moderators can just simply not handle the volume. On the other hand, AI-assisted content moderation can help optimize the moderation procedures and can bring scalability and efficiency to the overall process. Content moderation driven by Artificial Intelligence uses Machine Learning models trained on online-platform specific data to identify and remove unwanted content with accuracy. The AI moderation decisions are highly precise enough to automatically refuse, approve, or prioritize unwanted content. Generally, moderation can happen at 2 stages: Pre-moderation – before content is published Post-moderation – after the content has been published. AI models can impact the moderation process in the following ways: AI can help improve the accuracy of moderation at the pre-moderation stage by flagging inappropriate content for review by human moderators. The user-generated content and other content being moderated can be fed back as training data for improving the contextual understanding and accuracy of the model. Once done, AI can assist the human moderation teams in processing content at scale and flagging off or rejecting inappropriate content. Why is there so much buzz around content moderation? Well, if content is king, content moderators are kingmakers. The content on your online platform can elevate your business by several levels or completely obliterate it. What better reasons do businesses need to create high-quality content appreciated by all types of users? However, content moderation serves more purposes than you know. 4 Reasons Why Content Moderation is Important 1. It ensures your content remains pure and unadulterated. Ironically, freedom of thought and expression makes it impossible to dodge user-generated content that does not violate your platform’s guidelines. However, consistent moderation with AI-powered technology and human moderators effectively curbs the presence of unsavory and inappropriate content created by online miscreants. 2. It helps you understand pattern recognition and user behavior. Tagging content with key properties gives you better insights into user behavior and pattern recognition, especially for high-volume campaigns. The more intent you show in moderating your content, the better you can protect your brand and users. These insights also help you make better product and marketing decisions. 3. It takes your campaigns to the next level. If you are looking to drive marketing and sales campaigns, all you need is an effective content moderation strategy to dispel any negativity about your brand and make the campaign work in your favor. Using content moderation, you can scale the campaign by hosting contests, crowdsourcing ideas, garnering reviews, etc. 4. It attracts organic traffic & boosts conversions. Moderation creates a safe and reliable online environment, encouraging people to engage and spend more time on your platform. This also increases the chances of them clicking on ads and making purchases. Content moderation also curtails spam, improving user experience on your company’s website or social media page. The higher the quality of content you own, the better your chances of attracting organic traffic with greater engagement rates. Now that you know what you gain with content moderation, you may want to use it to its full potential. However, you need to have a basic understanding of how it works. Content moderation works in different ways for different data types. Moreover, there are various techniques too. AI-driven content moderation significantly reduces the risk of damaging content being posted by mistake. However, such errors are highly possible when you rely on human moderators. Here are some ways AI can help you optimize your content moderation. AI-driven Content Moderation Services: What It Moderates & How it Works Text moderation with AI Natural Language Processing is one of the key methods for text moderation because the volume of texts is usually much higher than that of images or videos. In text moderation, keyword filtering and topic analysis helps identify relevant content and remove it if it is inappropriate. For example: Linking keywords to sentiments and categorizing them under positive, neutral, and hostile. Using keywords to alert negativity such as crises, age-inappropriate content, or brutality. Entity recognition Entity recognition uses AI to extract names, locations, and companies to indicate the number of times your brand was mentioned on a particular platform. It also tells you how users from a specific location post reviews of your company or brand. In entity recognition, AI tools trained to detect emotions can predict the message tone and classify it. Image & video moderation Text moderation and

Artificial Intelligence is hogging the limelight. This groundbreaking technology has immense potential waiting to be unleashed across diverse industries and verticals. AI’s capacity for pattern recognition and consequence prediction can be leveraged for content moderation, especially on social media. Why Do We Need Content Moderation for Social Media? More than half the world’s population is on social media. Online platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn welcome people irrespective of race, color, creed, or religion. Age, of course, is a criterion, but that hasn’t stopped parents from creating special accounts for their children. Even pets have millions of followers on Instagram and Facebook. Social media platforms allow users to share videos, posts, and audios that cover almost every topic under the sun. They are free to express opinions and feelings and even share an hourly account of what they are doing and where they are. Businesses use these platforms to establish an online presence, garner followers and entice them into becoming customers. These pulsing centers of digital activity also have a dark side. Statistics show that nearly 38% or 4 out of every 10 people face offensive online behavior from people who hide behind nonsensical usernames and fake ids. Cyberbullies and digital miscreants are misusing social media platforms. This unsavory scenario underlines the pressing need for powerful content moderation strategies. At this point, only AI and ML (machine learning) can tackle this issue head-on. How Does AI-powered Content Moderation Work for Social Media? Content moderation is the process of monitoring and managing content pouring in from various social media platforms. The main aim of using content moderation for social media is to identify and remove inappropriate content and make the platform safe for all ages. Manual moderation is almost unthinkable with the amount of content uploaded every second of every minute. AI-driven content moderation, on the other hand, automated the entire process. It meticulously reviews content, identifies objectionable material, and forwards the revised content for approval. This systematic process makes the content visible to all users, removes it from the user’s account, or even blocks unruly users from using their accounts. Sometimes, users who post unwanted content are let off with a mild warning. As far as social media is concerned, content moderation happens in two ways: Reviewing and approval of content after it is uploaded by the users. Moderation of content before it is streamed live. The types of content moderation generally used to filter spam and make platforms clean and usable for everyone are: Post-moderation Pre-moderation Reactive moderation User-only moderation Automated or Algorithmic moderation Of these, automated moderation is the most advanced because it is AI-driven. In automated moderation, ML algorithms detect inappropriate content from millions of posts uploaded every single day. These ML algorithms are trained to detect unsavory images, videos, audio, and texts. What it cannot accurately interpret, however, is subtle or nuanced messages of hate, obscenity, bias, or misinformation. Most often, social media platforms use content moderation tools trained on social media postings, web pages, and Natural Language Processing from various communities. This annotated data empowers these tools to detect abusive content in the communication taking place within various communities. Types of Data Moderated on Social Media Platforms Social media content moderation covers various types of data, such as: Text moderation The volume of text content generated on social medial platforms exceeds the number of images and videos shared by users. Since the text covers a multitude of languages from all over the world, content moderation requires Natural Language Processing techniques to moderate textual content. Image moderation AI image recognition requires more sophistication for automated image detection and identification. In images, ML algorithms use Computer Vision to identify objects or characteristics like nudity, weapons, and logos. Video moderation Generative Adversarial Networks, or GANs, are used to identify images or videos manipulated with malicious intent. These ML models can also detect videos with fictional characters, actions, and deep fakes. More than a decade has passed since social media came into existence, but the need for content moderation is prolific now more than ever. If it is not implemented with a robust hand, it may be too late to prevent the repercussions when things go out of hand. 5 Reasons Why Content Moderation is a Must For Social Media Platforms 1. To maintain a safe online environment for users. Every social media platform is responsible for protecting its users from any content that instigates hate, crimes, untoward behavior, cyberbullying, and misinformation. Content moderation significantly reduces such risks by identifying and eliminating damaging content off the platform. 2. To maintain a harmonious user relationship. Content moderation bridges the gap between moderators and users. Users can share company, brand, or product-related feedback directly with the moderators. These insights help businesses improve their services and maintain a harmonious relationship with their customers. 3. To ensure safe and user-friendly communities. Social media platforms are also virtual communities, and like any other community, they require decorum to keep it safe and welcoming for everyone. Moderation helps keep an eye on non-compliant users and ensures positivity and inclusivity. 4. To prevent the spread of false information. Anything can become “trending” or “viral” on social media platforms, and misleading information is at the top of the list. Such information in videos, texts, or images can spread like wildfire as users share it on their profiles. Content moderation curbs the spread of false information inside the community. 5. To regulate the live streaming of videos. Many people do not stop to think twice about misusing live-streaming technology to gain personal attention or put others into embarrassing situations. Many have even tried to stream dangerous or sensitive videos on their social media handles. Only AI-powered content moderation can help curb such nonsense and ensure that live streaming is used for the right reasons. Social media content moderation is the best and most pragmatic solution to regulate content on these digital platforms. If not, the unfiltered content can severely damage the person, business, and

If the content is king, user-generated content is the Emperor that holds power to fortify your brand recognition and trust amongst your users. However, there’s a catch: User-generated content must portray your brand appropriately. If not, it could badly damage the online reputation of your business. Here’s where content moderation becomes a necessity. What is Content Moderation? Content moderation is the process of reviewing and monitoring user-generated content as per platform-specific rules and regulations. The method uses automated hi-tech tools and human involvement to identify and eliminate inappropriate content and ensure compliance with the website’s laws. In a nutshell, the prime objective of content moderation is to ensure the platform is safe and completely devoid of any content that makes the virtual environment unsafe for users. Why is content moderation important? The digital world is constantly changing as massive volumes of content are generated every second of every minute. In this scenario, platforms relying on user-generated content find it highly challenging to mitigate the risk of inappropriate content in various forms like texts, videos, images, and audio. Without content moderation, digital platforms may lose the very purpose they are designed for. Content moderation has become so prevalent that most digital platforms use content moderation in some way or the other based on their purpose. Let’s check out the details. Content Moderation: Role & Significance Across 6 Digital Platforms Platform-based content moderation rides on various factors, such as: Business Type Type of user-generated content Specifications of the user base Based on these factors, here’s how content moderation impacts each digital platform. 1. Customer service For customer service-oriented platforms, content moderation works in two ways: It protects employees from hostile customers and vice versa. In such cases, it is a wise strategy to deploy content moderation to: Prevent customer service staff from creating billing statements with questionable content. Prevent customers or staff from reacting offensively. Prevent customers from abusing representatives during live chat. 2. E-commerce platforms E-commerce platforms enable small and large brands to reach a wider audience without spending too much on product promotion. Content moderation can help in increasing the platform’s search engine visibility. Additionally, the more user-generated content available on an e-commerce platform, the better the chances of a higher search engine ranking. 3. Gaming sites Gaming sites are highly prone to inflammatory and abusive content that can flare up and spawn unwanted chaos within the gaming environment. Game developers rely on content moderators to keep out volatile content and to ensure a harmonious and competitive ecosystem that propels the site’s popularity. 4. Social media platforms A sizeable chunk of the world’s population thrives on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. These platforms generated massive volumes of user-generated content that’s useful, informative, and interesting. However, these platforms are also significant sources of inappropriate content, sometimes potent enough to incite controversies. Content moderators watch what’s posted and block unwanted content before it becomes visible on the platform. 5. Image & video moderation Imagery plays a significant role in boosting online interactions on digital platforms. In this context, content moderators have a major responsibility to ensure that: Users do not share pornographic, violent, or obscene videos or images. All images and videos are compliant with the platform’s rules and regulations. All imagery is monitored and categorized as per the guidelines. Since the current business environment requires high quality and compliance, content moderation ensures everything is in order. 6. Media & entertainment Nowadays, users can publish live videos and posts without waiting for a moderation team to analyze and approve them. As high-tech as its sounds, this practice is extremely risky as users can upload damage-inflicting content and sensitive video material that can damage the platform’s reputation within hours. In such cases, content moderation becomes a must, especially for media and entertainment platforms. In essence, content moderators have their job cut out for them. Manual moderation in this digital era is out of the question. That’s why content moderators harness the power of AI-driven tools to determine the toxicity of a statement by placing it in its context. A standard content moderation process starts with checking the user profile and other contextual factors and checking for using unusual terms. This process facilitates the classification of content accordingly. However, compliance is not the only output of content moderation. The process offers more benefits than you think. Here’s the list. 6 Amazing Benefits of Content Moderation for Digital Platforms 1. Ensures clean & appropriate content. Creating and maintaining an online platform requires money, hard work, and time. A lot of thought process goes into establishing a platform, and a single incident of abusive and inappropriate content can render the entire platform unsafe. With moderation, you can keep your platform safe for users of all ages. Moderation also helps establish your platform’s purpose and protect its integrity. 2. Improves organic traffic and SERP rankings. High-quality content pushes all the right buttons at the right time. It improves your online presence and visibility, bringing in organic traffic. As your user-generated content attracts more users, your website climbs the SERP rankings. All this is possible only with continuous and consistent content moderation. 3. Enhances customer and user understanding. Content moderation makes it possible to identify user patterns, especially in high-volume campaigns. Moderators may assign tags to content with brand-oriented thoughts and attitudes in such cases. This information can later be used to gain insights into user behavior and opinion. Using these insights, you can also identify areas of improvement for your brand recognition. 4. Protects your brand reputation. Even non-compliant, user-generated content can bring you unwanted troubles. Sometimes it may require nothing more than a derisive comment or an inappropriate image to damage your brand reputation beyond repair. However, content moderation can help you maintain your hard-earned reputation and create a positive and engaging environment. 5. Enhance your campaign effectiveness. An effective content moderation program will help scale your promotion campaigns without negatively affecting your brand. For example, when running a contest

Playing video games or “Gaming” is a popular trend transcending ages, cultures, professions, and social backgrounds. Previously, medical experts advocated outdoor games as a means to improve health. While the benefits of physical games remain undeniable, today, video gaming is said to be equally beneficial for mental health and cognition. Research on video gaming conducted by the University of Rochester unveiled surprising results about the gaming trend with millions of gamers under its spell. From a neurological viewpoint, video gaming positively impacts one’s: Contrast sensitivity Collaborative skills Reflex responses Eye and hand coordination Memory power While such aspects put a positive spin on video gaming, Gaming Moderation is the ultimate weapon that fosters a conducive online gaming atmosphere. Gaming Moderation: What Is It All About? Gaming Moderation is the digital process of screening and filtering all user-generated gaming content to ensure compliance with your gaming policies and regulations. Gaming content moderators sift through volumes of images, texts, and audio messages to filter out anything that compromises the quality and safety of your online gaming site. In a nutshell, Gaming Moderation is imperative in creating safe, respectful, and enjoyable gaming environments for users of all ages. Why is Gaming Behavior Moderation Important? The online gaming world is an ever-expanding universe. With over 500 million gamers playing online, there is a non-stop exchange of interactions and content. Source: eMarketer Online gaming is not only about playing a game. Gamers take on aliases, characters, and personalities and “live” in their own gaming communities. Hence, anything that happens within these communities can impact the players’ lives, perceptions, and actions. Without content moderation, players could face verbal abuse, derogatory comments, and hostility. A simple discussion can quickly escalate into a verbal battle that destroys the harmony and sportsmanship within the gaming community. Such unsavory incidents can render online gaming unsafe and demotivating for prospective players. Game chat moderation can, however, nip such issues in the bud. Gaming site moderation is a continuous task. Gaming content moderators have their work cut out for them because content moderation is no walk in the park. User-generated content will add up as gaming activity increases with the number of players. Nevertheless, gaming content must be moderated regardless of the images, chats, and posts users add to your games. The Role of AI & Humans in Gaming Moderation There are two ways to Gaming Moderation: 1. Human intervention 2. AI-based moderation Content moderation with Artificial Intelligence has one primary goal: To remove hateful, harmful, and malicious content to ensure a safe and fair gaming environment. Artificial Intelligence is, without a doubt, a potent tool. In Gaming Moderation, AI-powered automated tools use intelligent algorithms, in-built knowledge, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to process content and filter out abusive players. Without AI, it would be impossible to moderate the amount of gaming content generated every day. However, even AI has its limitations. While it can distinguish good content from bad, what AI cannot do is identify sarcastic comments and content masked with harmful intent. Here’s where human intelligence makes itself indispensable. Gaming content moderators can sift through volumes of user-generated content, review flagged content, etc., to root out such malicious comments that mar your site’s reputation. But this task alone would require enormous effort and time. Basically, what one can do, the other cannot, and vice versa. These differences set the stage for an ongoing debate about AI-driven content moderation versus human moderation. Let’s inspect how one differs from the other. AI-Moderation Vs. Human Moderation: The 5 Key Factors 1. The Expenses Having a team of content moderators or investing in AI-driven content moderation tools will cost you. The stark difference here is that AI tools are a one-time investment as opposed to maintaining a moderation team where your expenses will likely increase with the volume of content. AI moderation, on the other hand, requires only a small team and functions round-the-clock without breaks. Hence you also gain quick ROI for your efforts. 2. The Quality When it comes to moderation quality, human moderators win hands down. Human moderators are innately equipped to judge the intention behind sarcastic, veiled remarks, masked images, and phrases. Artificial Intelligence is yet to beat us in this aspect. AI moderation hits major blindspots in this context since it lacks the technical nuances to make a qualitative judgment. 3. The Context Here again, AI-based moderation does not fully understand how the content is used contextually and fails to differentiate between harmful and safe ranges. Human moderators have the upper hand in making context-related decisions. Moreover, moderation issues related to cultural and language context are effectively eliminated with gaming content moderators. 4. The Scalability AI is unbeatable in terms of processing massive content volumes. The more advanced the AI tool, the faster and more content it can moderate. While there is no doubting the thoroughness of human moderation, it is highly unlikely that even a massive team can keep up with the amount of content generated every minute. Furthermore, AI tools can effortlessly handle data across multiple channels in real time, which is a considerable advantage in this digital scenario. 5. The Ethics Algorithms are mere extensions of the digital world. They cannot think or decide for themselves. Instead, they are trained to do so on existing data sets. Hence it should come as no surprise that AI moderation can lead to biased algorithms. In this context, gaming content moderators may have the advantage of being able to assess context. However, human moderators are likely to be swayed by their own biases and preconceptions, which may reflect in their moderation decisions. So, who wins- AI or human moderation? The answer is both! Successful gaming site moderation relies on deriving the best of both worlds. It is the only pragmatic way to handle problematic content derived in real-time. Also Read: Top 8 AI Films of the 20th & 21st Centuries! 5 Avenues Where AI Gaming Moderation Requires Human Judgement AI and human moderation must work in tandem. AI-driven