📖 Content moderation glossary
What is a moderation audit trail?
In short
A moderation audit trail, or activity log, is a chronological record of moderation actions showing what was done to which content, when, by whom or by which system, and for what reason.
An audit trail answers the questions that come up after the fact: why was this comment hidden? Who restored it? Was the decision automated? Without it, a team cannot explain itself to a user, to management or to a regulator.
Example: a politician complains that his supporters' comments were removed from a news site's page. The editor checks the log: each comment was hidden for a stated reason, mostly spam links, two restored after review. The answer takes minutes.
Logs also feed DSA obligations: statements of reasons, complaint handling and transparency reports all rely on knowing what was decided and why. OpenModeration keeps an activity log and records a written reason for every decision, and moderation figures can be exported.