Why is Content Moderation Important?

The rapid rise of social media has resulted in a lot of us asking the question: why is content moderation important?

Social media and other digital services are platforms that help us develop closer connections, despite any physical distance that may exist. Users of social media platforms have multiplied and fast forward to today – the world has over 4.7 billion people using social media.

It is hard to imagine the amount of data, as well as content, that are generated daily from all of the social media and digital platforms designed to connect people. It’s a staggering amount – 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created every day in 2022 – and it’s about to rise exponentially. This has highlighted the need for people and technology to ensure that digital spaces are safe, so users can join communities and interact with others, without exposure to harmful content.

With an increase in the amount and type of content including images, texts, videos, live streams, and other content formats, combined with the new interactions that this content facilitates, bad actors are finding new ways to create and distribute harmful content. In fact, according to recent research, 84% of adults fear seeing harmful content online.

Digital spaces are also expanding with users being introduced to the concepts in a virtual world where individuals can interact, connect, shop, learn, buy, and play. These will pose even greater real-time content risks given the impact that harmful audio, sensory feedback through haptic technology, and other potential impacts of AR/VR technology.

Why is Content Moderation Important?

Without content moderation, users of online spaces and members of online communities become vulnerable to abuse, bullying, and other harms. Companies and brands also become susceptible to fake reviews, fraud, or misinformation.

There are a lot of reasons why is content moderation important. Here are the top five:

1. Content moderators provide a “first responders” role in the digital world protecting the users, companies, brands, and their customers.
2. Content moderators safeguard online communities, websites, and social media platforms from harmful content so that exposure to this can be minimized.
3. Content moderators enforce trust and safety policies and guidelines set by online communities and companies.
4. Content moderators plays a key role in protecting, maintaining, and increasing brand reputation and trust amongst online communities.
5. Content moderators help to provide an understanding of context and nuance in order to ensure that content that should be actioned is, while content that shouldn’t be actioned isn’t.

Key Content Moderator Traits

Content moderators carry a big responsibility on their shoulders. Every content moderator must have:

1. Reliability, to ensure that trust and safety standards are being met to protect users daily
2. Resiliency, to withstand the difficult conditions or scenarios that are ever-present in digital spaces
3. Adaptability to changing policies and community guidelines which require quick pivots to accurately enforce these fast-moving requirements
4. Sound judgement and analytical skills to be able to understand context, nuance, cultural, and local factors that could impact the safety of content
5. Detail orientation, given that consistency is key to accuracy of content moderation, requiring attention to detail from the start to the end of the content moderation work

What is important to provide to content moderators to drive success?

Given the critical nature of this work and the type of content that a content moderator may see, it is important to ensure that content moderators feel psychological safety and have access to wellness support, adequate breaks, and relevant training, amongst many other resources, to safely fulfill their job while minimizing potential negative impacts to mental, emotional and physical health.

Learn more about Teleperformance’s content moderation capabilities and how we can protect  your business and customers through our award-winning trust and safety services.