Moderation is the process of monitoring the implementation of the rules and requirements established on the website. The one who performs these actions is called a moderator. Therefore, moderation outsourcing means the transfer of duty to moderate inappropriate content, then mark it, delete it, or revise it.

The most common types of moderation are:

• Managing information visibility on forums (for example, redistributing discussion threads on relevant topics and deleting those that do not meet the established requirements);
• control over content published by users, comments, messages, etc., prohibited by the rules (obscene language, spam, porn, etc.);
• warning users for violations, blocking and deleting their accounts.

Why is this service important for companies?

The surge of fake news on the Internet and the intensification of negative trends in brand perceptions are forcing companies to reconsider their attitude to content moderation strategies.

For a modern company, online content is becoming one of the main tools for increasing brand awareness and a way to interact with customers. However, along with better information about companies on the Internet, there is also a huge amount of negative publications, unconfirmed rumors and questionable reviews that are affecting the reputation of trademarks. The perception of the brand greatly affects the decisions of consumers to purchase a product or service.

How can companies form a positive perception of their brands and control the result of their clients? It all starts with content moderation. Modern content managers face serious problems where user content and advertising platforms must meet company standards.

What can a content moderator do? 

Moderators play an important role by tracking the appearance of “correct” content on the Internet and ensuring that its content is consistent with the declared brand values. The content moderator can perform the following tasks:

Here is what happen in pre-moderation. Before being made visible to everyone, the moderator previews the content of reviews and posts on the official website of the brand or on the forums and social networks of the brand community.

This method is best suited for content whose placement is not critical in time and / or if there is a suspicion that its content has a slanderous orientation. For example, in online communities with child audiences, this method will help avoid bullying and prevent unwanted behavior.

However, it is just a tip of the iceberg. Companies need complete strategies to quickly and efficiently identify moderate content.

“The scale of the Internet does not allow one person to “process” the entire amount of available content,” says Harikesh Nair, a marketing professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. To solve this problem, companies need digital tools, but even in this case, they will have to hire specialists or train their own employees. For many companies, the first attempts were unsuccessful and served as a reason for refusing further movement in this direction.”

Sometimes companies are drawn into media conflicts. For example, some time ago, a whole information storm broke out in the media, when Kellogg’s advertising suddenly appeared with its anti-Semitic, sexist and racist publications. Under pressure from public opinion, Kellogg’s was forced to remove all of its advertising from the site on the grounds that this site did not correspond to the declared brand values.

With the existence of skillful content moderators, companies can minimize the possibility of such incidents. The problem is, moderation requires keen eyes too see the detail and hours of work. As a result, it will cost a company a lot of money and resources.

Why is the Philippines a popular place to outsource this type of service to?

The Philippines are known as home of so many freelance workers. Filipinos considered to have excellent English skill, understand typical Western slang, and have a great analysis to detail. These criteria making them a perfect choice for companies looking for content moderation outsourcing. In addition, the workers have affordable hourly rate. As a result, companies can rely on quality content moderation with affordable prices.

In fact, Facebook itself set its major content moderation headquarter in Manila, Philippines. These battalions of young girls and boys are the human filter who eliminates the barbarism that exists every day on social networks. They decide what things can be seen and what things are forbidden in the digital society.

These moderators are responsible for deciding which content is safe and which is too sensitive to circulate on Facebook. For that, their work consists in watching roughly 25,000 images and videos per day that users from all over the world upload to the social network. Among all the material, there are porn scenes, violence against minors, decapitations, racist photos and even suicides abound.

What companies need content moderation services?

Honestly, we would say that any companies that publish online content needs moderation service. Especially, those who accept user-generated content such as user’s audio/video, comments, feedback, reviews, and more. Below, we list the businesses that ideally should prepare content moderation system.

• Community/ Forum: Content moderator is required to label inappropriate post of forum users. It can be rude words, image or vide of violation, illegal information leaks, and more
• Marketplace: When you let somebody to sell into marketplace, not everyone is going to follow the rules. That is why, it is essential for content moderators to eliminate those who are selling something illegal or not allowed by the marketplace, overpromising the quality of the product/service, and eliminate sellers who sell imitation product.
• Social Media: Social media site is completely user generated website including its content, advertisement, and feedback posted. Of course, there will be porn, sensitive content of violation, racism, and more. Content moderation system is needed. In this case, the combination between AI and human moderator is absolutely needed.
• Customer Review Sites: Not all reviews come from verified purchase buyer. Sometimes bad reviews exist just to make the company reputation down. Otherwise, good reviews can come from the company itself to make its company profile looks good.
• Website Content/ Comment: Just like other types of content, not all comments exist in blog/website are all informative and helpful. In fact, most of the time comments column just full of spam and advertisement links.