3 reasons why content moderation is important

AI-based content moderation tool

We live in an age when most of the usual everyday processes are being transferred to the digital environment. Therefore, you can do almost anything without leaving home with the help of the Internet. Wether it's ordering food, buying or selling things, booking a trip. It is incredibly convenient, hence more and more people are involved in online life.

Users publish as diverse content as they are themselves. Thus, it is a natural consequence of different user education, culture, hobbies, and other social aspects. To manage user-published content and make sure that no one gets offended or disappointed, every platform has its own rules or user guidelines. The problem here is that it is difficult to manually check each published post or ad in real-time. This is how content moderation came about.

What is content moderation?

Content moderation is the process when the user-uploaded content is reviewed according to the website’s rules and it’s either approved or rejected. The rules can vary depending on the purpose and preferences of the business. 

 

Photos and videos are checked for signs of nudity, violence, alcohol, or any other negative associations. It is also possible to customize the rules so that only content that matches a particular filter can be published. For example, if it is a clothing marketplace, no photos except for clothing are allowed. This way content moderation tool helps you to avoid spam as well as duplicate posts.

 

Marketplace owners are faced with a dilemma. A laissez-faire approach and lax moderation will keep the marketplace bustling with new offers. However, the marketplace will quickly be overrun by spam, serve as a haven to fraudsters, and may even face legal challenges in the end. In addition, poor user experience is the key reason why shoppers choose to go elsewhere.

 

A strict policing approach, where every new entry is manually reviewed, requires vast human moderator resources, as well as slows down commerce in the sense that every new product entry needs to be manually approved. It’s only a temporary patch for smaller websites. It quickly becomes unsustainable with the business growth.

Content moderation types

AI content moderation tools are employed in tandem with human moderation efforts. It is up to the website owner to decide what approach works best for his property.

 

In an automated mode, the AI content moderation platform can serve as a gatekeeper, blocking all unwanted content before it appears on the site. The platform can make autonomous and automated decisions, with human moderators being able to overrule these decisions later on.

 

In a manual mode, an AI content moderation platform can assign a probability score to every uploaded item (e.g. 80% – nudity, 95% – weapons, 65% – hate speech). In this case, the platform will not block any content from appearing. However, it will prioritize the items with the highest unwanted content score to be reviewed first by the human moderator. It helps the moderator staff ‘to look where it matters’. Considering the limited human moderation resources, it prioritizes the most urgent work, eliminating the need to manually review every new content item.

 

Finally, assisted mode combined the best of both worlds. The platform automatically removes unwanted content where it is highly certain that it violates marketplace terms of service. For the remaining items, it creates a priority worklist for human moderators to review.

 

This combined effort helps to keep the most harmful content from appearing on the site. Additionally, it reduces the workload burden of moderators, enabling them to react quickly to suspicious areas.

3 reasons why content moderation is important:

1) Smooth customer journey

 

Consumers are becoming pickier and are not satisfied with the functionality alone, they want a quality experience. A satisfied user is an essential indicator of a successful e-business. Reviews, WOM, and conversion rates depend on the smoothness of his experience.

 

2) Shiny brand image

 

Building a trustworthy brand is one of the most important elements in helping to connect with the consumer. If a website constantly receives negative feedback about its inappropriate content, it will not inspire trust in either potential customers or partners. 86 percent of millennials say that user-generated content is generally a good indicator of the quality of a brand or service.

 

3) Increased website traffic

 

Aesthetic content that matches the purpose of the website will encourage users to upload more content or repeatedly visit the website. Quality content is also captured by the “Google” search engine, ranking the site with good quality content in a more attractive search position, which improves website traffic.

 

The competition in online marketplaces is huge nowadays, so moderating content is no longer an advantage but a necessity. Users will quickly tire of browsing through the trash and move elsewhere – where they can enjoy their shopping experience and discover well-presented products in fever clicks.

EasyCMT - AI Content Moderation Platform for Marketplaces

EasyCMT AI content moderation platform was designed for online marketplaces, e-commerce websites with third-party sellers, as well as classified ad portals. The platform moderates images, video, and textual information. It is designed to spot the most common offenses, including nudity, hate speech, illicit goods, duplicates, spam, usage of ALL CAPS, and unwanted symbols.

Using Computer Vision and machine learning models, the platform can be trained to spot particular offenses, endemic on your website. 

 

The platform also offers additional image enhancement and background removal tools to ensure a fluid customer experience. Operating in a fully automated or assisted fashion, the platform can support diverse moderation workflows that are employed by your organization.

 

The best part? EasyCMT is available as a free version, so you may evaluate how the platform performs with your specific content.

 

Want to see EasyCMT in action? Contact us and improve your shopping experience!

Toma Zilinskyte - slack content moderation

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Toma Žilinskytė

Business Development Manager