It’s unclear whether Facebook will hire people or outsource this work.  Nor is there any indication where in the world these additional resources will reside.  One thing however is certain – with over one billion active Facebook users, and over 5 billion pieces of content shared daily, this is a huge and necessary job.  We at Mzinga strongly believe in protecting the public and children specifically, and commend Facebook for the attention they are giving this issue.

The post Facebook Doubles Down on Content Moderators appeared first on Online Moderation.

The actions of our team member captured here do not appear to reflect patience or empathy, two values necessary for customer care. In short, we are disappointed by these actions. The American team member has been removed from duty while we immediately investigate this incident.”

Do you have a Social Media Crisis Plan?  Let Mzinga help.

The post Social Media Crisis? Take ownership of the issue. appeared first on Online Moderation.

Don’t be United.  Develop a sound Social Media Crisis plan in the event you ever need it.  Mzinga can help.

The post The first 24 hours in a social media crisis are critical – is United Airlines listening? appeared first on Online Moderation.

The post United Airlines in a Social Media Crisis as Twitter blows up over (gasp!!) spandex. appeared first on Online Moderation.

One embeddable commenting system, Disqus, is facing massive boycotts due to the fact that they power the commenting on Breitbart and many other website forums.  Is there an easy answer to this?  I’m sure there are two dissenting easy answers depending on where you stand.  Where this is no law or statute prohibiting hate speech in commenting systems and forums, the forum owners must define their own policies based on business impacts.  Additionally, vendors such as Disqus need to determine the potential impacts of who they do business with.

The post Hate Speech, Free Speech, or a business decision? appeared first on Online Moderation.

Mzinga moderators spend much of their shifts putting an end to flame wars, banning trolls, handling customer complaints, and keeping the peace.  As Mzinga’s Director of Moderation Services, I ensure that the team works in an environment that encourages and practices civil interaction as well.

To produce harmonious workplace conditions, the consulting firm Civility Partners has established the following guidelines for teams, whether they work together in an office or virtually.  Teams should especially avoid:

—  Aggressive Communication (includes insults or offensive remarks, angry outbursts, avoidance,  offensive written communications, and blaming someone for issues not their fault or they have no control over)

— Humiliation (includes ridiculing or teasing, spreading gossip, taunting (in person or writing), publicly pointing out mistakes or mistakes that have been corrected, and snubbing for having a different interpretation of a company policy or management style)

— Manipulation of Work (includes subverting tasks associated with a person’s job responsibilities, unmanageable workloads and impossible deadlines, making general statements about poor performance without offering assistance to correct it, and leaving a person out of the correspondence and meeting loop)

Behaviors that contribute to workplace civility are respect, support, encouragement, politeness, openness, appreciation, trust, sensitivity, sincerity, having a positive attitude, taking pride in what you do, and being a good example.

Each company should have an established Company and Management Commitment to Civility that ensures their workers are free from negative, aggressive, and inappropriate behaviors and that the workplace will provide an atmosphere of respect, collaboration, openness, safety, and equality; where complaints about negative workplace behaviors are taken seriously and followed-through to resolution.  Every employee, from the CEO to the intern, is given a copy and a signed copy is part of their employee file.  Larger companies will have a training module as part of new employee orientation.

Online moderators keep their client’s sites free from risks that run from bad publicity to legal liability.  As a result, the burnout rate is high (see my blog entry from a couple of weeks ago about two Microsoft moderators who say they are permanently disabled from moderating disturbing images).  At Mzinga, the moderation team is able promote civil interaction because it is practiced in their workplace.

The post Online Moderators Keep it Civil, But What About Where They Work? appeared first on Online Moderation.

More than ten years ago, I complimented Facebook for encouraging its members to send in a report if they saw a post by a member or friend saying they were serious about harming themselves.  If a report was received, Facebook contacted the member with a message of concern, along with a list of resources for getting support.

Recently, Facebook announced updated resource tools, as well as the use of artificial technology (AI), to offer a more rapid assist to those who may be contemplating suicide.  In addition to an improved support system that is now available on Facebook Live, text and videos are analyzed for content indicating that the member may be considering suicide.

If the software reads triggering words and phrases that indicate a member is at risk, the Facebook Community Operations team is notified.  They will send a message of support and suggest ways the member can seek help if they need it.

Have we seen the last suicide on Facebook Live?  Probably not, but instead of using AI to combat online trolling behavior (i.e. Google’s Perspective), saving lives is a much more real-world and effective use of the technology.

The post Facebook Adds AI to Suicide Prevention Arsenal appeared first on Online Moderation.

Late last year, I commented on Google’s Jigsaw software, created to apply machine learning to detect and remove harassment and abusive content in areas where users interact online.  At the time, I said that no matter how much Jigsaw learned, it would never be smart enough to replace human moderators.

Recently, Google’s Counter Abuse Technology Team released Perspective, the newest Jigsaw tool.  It’s an API that allows users to tap Jigsaw’s library of millions of words and phrases and determine a message’s “toxicity.”  Perspective scans each message and produces a toxicity rating as a percent, based on what panels of users have thought of similar comments.  Each comment, for example, is rated as “8 percent similar to phrases people said were “toxic.””

While several sites, such as the New York Times, are giving it a try (you can try it as well at the Perspective Demo Site), there are many that believe that, while helpful, it will never be used more than as a first pass to flag content for subsequent human review.  Perspective advances the learning curve of using Artificial Intelligence to combat online trolling, but it also further illustrates the continuing value of human moderators.

The post Google’s Jigsaw Gets a New Perspective: Learning Curve Still a Hairpin appeared first on Online Moderation.

A recent survey by the Angus Reid Public Interest Research Institute found that one-fourth of Canadians are subjected to “unwelcome comments, vicious insults, threats of violence, or worse,” with the bulk of abuse coming from Facebook and Twitter.  The number rises among frequent and younger users.

In response, users have become reluctant to engage in debate with those holding contrary opinions.  Instead, they hold back and self-censor themselves when it comes to controversial topics.  The Institute also found that Canadians believe Internet companies aren’t doing enough to curb harassment and personal attacks.

When queried about where the companies are falling short, users said that they weren’t responsive to complaints and requests for assistance, and they weren’t performing sufficient moderation tasks:  finding and removing offensive content in a timely manner.  When given removal policy choices, most wanted the companies to “get tough” by regularly monitoring and moderating interactive areas and actively removing content (and those that post it) that does not follow the rules of conduct.

If a company does not have internal resources to moderate areas where users are allowed to post messages and comments, the best alternative is to hire a vendor who specializes in online moderation.

One such company is Mzinga, who for more than 25 years has been keeping companies (and their users) safe from harassment, offensive personal attacks, and other abuses.  We are also able to triage requests to customer service: providing assistance, answering questions, and routing specific requests to the proper divisions of the company.

Your users and customers are demanding that you take tough action to keep them safe.  Why not take the first step: give us a call and let us show you how Mzinga moderation and customer service triage can revive civility?

The post 25 Percent of Canadians Are Harassed on Social Media appeared first on Online Moderation.

Last week, Amazon ended it years-old policy of hooking up its reviewers with free or deeply discounted products, which many had complained skewed the ratings into more positive numbers of stars, causing them to appear further towards the top of ratings lists by as many as two stars.

The new policy takes away the vendor freebies, except in the case of books in the Amazon Vine program where reviewers trusted by Amazon are still able to receive advance copies.  According to an Amazon spokesman, reviews that were received prior to the policy change are only being retroactively removed if they are excessive, and don’t comply with prior policy.  That leaves a huge number of reviews with false ratings that will continue to leave buyers leery of their validity.

Amazon also needs to deal with the verified purchase program, where a reviewer who purchases a reviewed item from Amazon receives a “verified purchase” icon on the review.  The program causes readers of reviews without the icon (meaning that the item was purchased at another site or store) to believe that the review is less trustworthy.  If Amazon reviews are to be as unbiased as possible, this program also needs to be revamped.

The post Amazon Bans Giving Free Books to Reviewers appeared first on Online Moderation.