Online content has become a powerful tool for modern businesses in marketing, engagement, and communication. Nevertheless, content moderation is now essential due to the amount of user-generated content on different platforms.
A lot of companies didn’t realize the value of content moderators. Therefore, their job were neglected or ignored altogether. It is important to moderate inappropriate internet content to safeguard innocent users from terrible content. Content moderation is now necessary when creating a safe and trustworthy online environment.
Content moderation in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) involves partnering with third-party service providers to supervise and handle user-generated material.
Choosing a vendor to outsource content moderation might be challenging due to the abundance of service providers in the market. Before choosing a BPO partner, you need to ensure a couple of things.
In this article, we have laid out the benefits and drawbacks of choosing a third party to handle content moderation on your behalf. Before diving into the actual topic, let’s understand some basics first.
Content Moderation – What is it?
One of the most important parts of managing social media is content moderation. This is where someone takes care of messages, comments, and other content outside parties post. These outside parties could be people you follow, people who buy from you, or strangers you meet online.
It is the responsibility of the content moderator to distinguish between legitimate users and automated ones and to remove any content that does not adhere to these standards. Content moderators also screen comments and publicly accessible content for foul language, slurs, obscenities, and other inappropriate stuff.
In business process outsourcing (BPO), content moderation oversees and controls user-generated content (UGC) on various web platforms. The responsibility of checking the content for compliance with community rules, legal restrictions, and the client’s content policy falls within BPO service providers.
The Methods Used for BPO Content Moderation
1. Pre-Moderation
Reviewing user-generated content before its publication on internet platforms is known as pre-moderation. BPO moderators check everything against community standards and content policies to ensure everything is in line.
2. Post-Moderation
Post-moderation is the process of assessing published user-generated content. Moderators from BPO keep an eye out for any offensive material on the platform and will remove it if they find it.
3. Reactive Moderation
Reactive moderation is all about responding to reports or complaints about user-generated content. Based on their findings, BPO moderators review these reports and remove or restrict content as necessary.
“Human vs AI Content Moderation”— The Better Option?
Human moderation involves humans manually adjusting images, videos, and texts. The human moderator follows site or app-specific regulations. They keep illegal, fraudulent, inappropriate, and harassing content off the network to safeguard users.
Automatic or AI moderation means an online platform will automatically approve, reject, or forward user-generated content to human moderation based on its rules and guidelines. Online platforms that aim to publish high-quality user-generated content and keep users immediately secure should use automated moderation.
AI has advanced, and firms are always improving their AI algorithms, but human moderators are still needed to manage your brand online and ensure your material meets human standards. Indeed, content reading, comprehension, interpretation, and moderation are best done by humans.
So, a hybrid approach will do the job as a single cannot do the job 100% without the other.
The Importance of Content Moderation
Most people are wondering why content moderation is so important? The Internet was supposed to be a democratic space where users could freely express themselves, right?
More and more users, especially younger and older ones, are joining the platform. As a result, content moderation is an absolute need as 3G and 4G networks grow. Without proper monitoring, vulnerable populations in Japan, China, and Korea, such as children and the elderly, may be subjected to online predators and scammers.
In short, the lack of regulation and supervision affects everyone, not just businesses. Content moderation is crucial for the following reasons:
1. Preventing Platform Abuse
The widespread misuse of online platforms, whether for the recruitment of members of prohibited organizations or the promotion of misinformation, serves no purpose for businesses or the general public and must end immediately.
2. Positively Affecting Search Engine Results
When companies in Asia control their content and publish fewer pieces that break search engine guidelines, they establish themselves as authorities, improving their search engine results.
3. Stopping Radical Campaigns
Incidents involving the radicalization of minds and the recruitment of terrorists for similar organizations have been recorded in nations such as Bangladesh, India, Singapore, and the US. By implementing content monitoring, platforms such as TikTok can detect and remove any harmful information before it reaches and influences young minds.
4. Protecting the Brand
Online retailers, media companies, and social media platforms may all benefit from content moderation like Facebook does: it prevents their brands from being degraded and misused.
Outsourcing Content Moderation – What Does it Mean?
Outsourcing content moderation means third-party groups are responsible for monitoring, identifying, eliminating, and sometimes organizing online content. There are ways to comply with regulations and stick to your platform’s community guidelines that don’t involve internal people.
One option is to hire an external agency’s team of moderators in Asia. Another option is to use AI and chatbot content moderation. Outsourcing helps with many things, including relieving the mental load on an internal team that has to examine and monitor potentially hazardous information.
Pros of BPO Content Moderation
Below are all the right reasons to hire a BPO vendor for the sake of authentic content moderation:
1. A Better User Experience
Improving the user experience for clients is greatly aided by content control. This filter checks user-generated material for safety, appropriateness, and audience relevance. This contributes to developing a pleasant and interesting user environment, which boosts engagement and loyalty.
2. Efficiency in Scaling
You may easily scale up or down the amount of content moderation you outsource to a specialized business. This means you are well-equipped to deal with any moderation issue, no matter how complicated. Worrying about staffing is no longer necessary to enable real-time moderation during high-traffic events like major sporting events or political elections. I have already handled this for you.
3. Enhanced Productivity
Efficiency gains are another possible outcome of outsourcing content moderation. A professional content moderation service has the equipment, procedures, and knowledge to manage massive amounts of material. Efficiently and without delay.
4. Better Ability to Change and Evolve
Greater adaptability and flexibility are other benefits of outsourcing content filtering. It requires time and effort for an in-house team to adapt to new technology or changing moderating demands. When you outsource, you gain access to a group of professionals continuously learning new methods and using cutting-edge technology.
5. User Security and Confidence
Providing a secure and encouraging online space is crucial to gaining users’ trust and loyalty. Content moderation aims to ensure users have a positive experience by preventing them from accessing harmful or unsuitable content.
6. Adherence to All Necessary Laws and Regulations
One way in which business process outsourcing (BPO) content moderation helps clients avoid legal trouble is by making sure that user-generated material follows all applicable laws and regulations.
7. Achieving Expertise Delivery
For firms without the necessary in-house resources, BPOs can be a lifesaver because of the specialized knowledge and expertise they bring to the table. In addition to avoiding the costs of training in-house employees to do the same duties, partnering with a BPO provider guarantees that experts perform their jobs.
Cons of BPO Content Moderation
Here are some major cons to outsourcing content moderation:
1. Organizational Efforts
Companies are still responsible for overseeing the outsourcing partnership and keeping tabs on how well the content moderation service performs.
2. Poor SOC Controls
A lack of direct management and operational variances can make it harder to ensure compliance with Service Organization management procedures, leading to looser SOC controls.
3. Operating Governance
Organizations must have a strong system of governance in place to guarantee that their outsourcing partner follows all of their rules, regulations, and goals.
Conclusion
With the many advantages of content moderation BPO, outsourcing is seen as more than just a way to save money; it is a key strategy tool for companies aiming to expand in a competitive market.
By outsourcing content moderation, you may keep your operations consistent and competitive globally while increasing efficiency, enjoying cost reduction, gaining access to affordable industry experts, sourcing people for vital roles, and accelerating startup scalability.
However, problems with content moderation arise, such as managing BPO teams, poor SOC controls, and checking whether your partner is following the rules provided. To tackle these challenges and guarantee efficient content filtering, BPO providers should adopt industry standards.
You can reduce your organization’s exposure to risk and take advantage of highly skilled professionals who can deliver high-quality content moderation services at a fraction of the cost by outsourcing to well-known BPO vendors in Asia.
Choosing an expert for content moderation outsourcing is a smart move!
Author: Greg.B
Executive with 25 years of proven success in call center management and revitalizing business units. Proven career record of producing multimillion-dollar profits through pinpointing operational inefficiencies and encouraging the revitalization of employee morale and corporate culture change.