📖 Content moderation glossary
What is content moderation?
In short
Content moderation is the process of reviewing user-generated content (comments, posts, images, videos) and deciding whether to keep, hide, remove or restrict it, based on a platform's rules and the applicable law.
Content moderation covers every decision an organisation takes about content it did not write itself but hosts or displays: a comment under an article, a reply on a brand's Facebook page, a review on a marketplace, a message in a forum. The possible actions go from leaving the content as it is to hiding it, deleting it, limiting its visibility or sanctioning its author.
Moderation can happen before publication (pre-moderation), after publication (post-moderation) or only when someone reports a problem (reactive moderation). It can be done by people, by software, or by both together, which is what most teams end up doing once volumes grow.
For a news publisher, a brand or a public body, moderation is what keeps a comment space usable: insults, spam and scams drive away readers and customers, while over-moderation silences legitimate criticism and damages trust. In the European Union, the Digital Services Act also sets procedural obligations for hosting services, such as handling reports and explaining decisions.
OpenModeration applies the client's own moderation rules to comments on websites, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and WordPress: clear violations are hidden automatically, criticism stays visible and doubtful cases are handled by the OpenModeration team. You just connect your pages and see every decision, with its written reason, in real time.