📖 Content moderation glossary
What is comment moderation?
In short
Comment moderation is the review of comments posted under articles, videos or social media posts in order to remove or hide abuse, spam and illegal content while keeping legitimate opinions, including criticism, visible.
Comment moderation is the most common form of content moderation for organisations that are not platforms themselves. Comments arrive fast, in large numbers and often at night or on weekends, especially when a topic is sensitive or a post goes viral.
Example: a regional newspaper publishes an article about a local election. Within an hour, hundreds of comments appear. Most are opinions, some are sharp criticism of the newspaper, a few contain insults aimed at a candidate and two contain a link to a fake giveaway. Good comment moderation hides the insults and the scam links and leaves all the opinions, including the criticism.
The difficulty is to be fast and consistent without being heavy-handed. Readers notice when comments disappear without explanation, and they also leave when a thread becomes toxic. A written moderation policy and a clear distinction between hiding and deleting help a lot.
OpenModeration moderates comments on websites through an API and on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and WordPress, according to the rules each client sets. Clear violations are hidden automatically, criticism stays visible and uncertain cases are handled by the OpenModeration team. The client sees every decision in real time in one console and can step in whenever it wants.