The Four C’s: Keeping Your Child Safe Online All Year

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The Four C's: Keeping Your Child Safe Online All Year

It's back-to-school season, which shifts children's attention and screens time to other activities. The return to school season means that there will be a shift in how children interact daily with technology platforms, including social media, gaming, e-commerce and education. We will use technology platforms in different ways and volumes in the weeks ahead. This change in online activities for children brings new (and old!) risks that will require a shift in the focus of Trust & Safety teams.

Trust & Safety teams must quickly and effectively respond to the increasing number of complex daily threats children face. They should be aware of the different types of online threats that children face and have a plan for action to counter them.

Online Safety Risks for Children

Although content moderation teams have the tools and experience to spot potential risks, children are more vulnerable online. Often the team can overlook the more serious risks if we focus only on the content. Trust & Safety teams need to evaluate the entire online environment, from what children are exposed to, their interactions with others and the information they share.

The Four main types of online risks for children are known. Each presents a unique threat, so it is essential to have different detection and response mechanisms. Learn more about the Four C's and how teams can respond.

Content Risks

Children and online audiences face many risks from content. These include exposure to harmful or unsafe content and these include exposure to profanity and sexual content.

Talk to Risks

Contact risks are the possibility of harming children by communicating with threat actors. These actors could include child predators or criminals, terrorists, and adults pretending they are children.

Take Risks

Conduct risks refer to children who engage in physically and emotionally harmful behaviours. These could include bullying, self-harm, encouraging eating disorders, and dangerous viral challenges.

Contract Risks

Contract risks are the possibility that children will agree to terms and contracts they don't agree upon or understand. They could include consenting to inappropriate marketing messages, purchasing an item inadvertently, or giving access to personal information.

How trust and safety can help

Equip Trust & Safety teams with various tools, procedures and processes to overcome children's many online risks.

1. Create strong policies that are focused on children

An extensive policy will help to deter harmful content and other illegal activities. While policies should consider the most shared content risks, their design must also have children in mind. Including policies that govern who can and can't communicate with them, what content they may have access to, and what information and documents they can and can not provide.

It cannot be easy to build a policy. Reactive policies should be able to adapt to changes in the online threat environment and keep up with emerging trends in violations. Child Safety, Second Edition.

2. Establish Subject Matter Expertise

Subject matter expertise is crucial to counter online children's many complex and multilingual risks. Each child predator group, terrorist network, or eating disorder community is unique, and they use specific terminology and exploit different platforms in unique ways to reach a large audience. Experts who are well-versed in the dangers, code words and jargon can identify these threats and help to stop them.

Subject matter experts know, for example, that #Iatepastatonight is suicide content or self-harm. A pizza emoji, however, signals child pornography. These experts are familiar with the hidden codes and chatter within these groups and wherever their location is. 

Unique terminologies and Emojis are one-way predators that communicate with children online to abuse them. Look at this report about the Weaponization of Emojis to see a selection of these emojis.

3. Use on- and offline intelligence

Protecting children and vulnerable users is urgent, and it is essential to act quickly to prevent harm. Trust & Safety teams need to use subject expertise and foresight to prevent children from being harmed.

Teams can gather proactive intelligence from the dark web and the open internet to understand the risks and take action to prevent them.

ActiveFence's Trust & Safety Intelligence solution is available to you.

4. Safety by Design

Safety by design puts safety at the heart of product development to prevent injury before it occurs. Teams protect children from known and unknown dangers by using safety as a guiding principle in product design.

These are just a few examples of product safety measures that increase online child safety:

a. Fundamental age verification tools verify users' age before accessing certain content.

b. Reporting features that allow children and all users to flag dangerous users. Software that allows users to manage the data that platforms access. This software limits the ability of threat actors to exploit loopholes to harm.

c. Our safety-by-design guide will help you better understand safety design fundamentals and their uses.

5. Scale with Contextual Artificial Intelligence

Intelligent AI is required to detect and prevent children from being in danger. Using contextual AI to analyse content can uncover patterns the human eye cannot see. A simple "how are ya" might seem innocent, but AI can add additional information, such as previous violations and the age of users, to give a completely different picture.

Contextual AI also uses many factors to accurately flag content when it comes down to CSAM. Machine learning models and classifiers analyse text, images, logos, and text for nudity, and age, allowing them to flag CSAM and harassment with high precision. Text models can detect harmful text even when it's deliberately misspelt or spaced out as "u gl y"

Please read our AI and human content detection tools blog to learn more about AI content moderation.

Conclusion

Online dangers are increasing, so Trust & Safety teams must improve and scale their efforts to ensure child safety online. Teams can prevent harm by understanding and implementing the best processes and procedures.

A.I. Technology for content moderation

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A.I. Technology for content moderation

Social media platforms can use technological capabilities such as robotic process automation and automating repetitive manual tasks to improve content management and maintain standards. Utilising natural language processing systems may train A.I. to accept text messages in multiple languages. It's possible to teach a program to detect posts that violate public tips and could, for example, search for racial slurs and terms associated with extremist propaganda. A.I. tends to work associate degree initial screening. However, human moderators are often needed to determine whether the content violates community standards.

A.I. has the potential to replace many of our jobs. A.I. is now capable of identifying inappropriate images more than humans. Others are still trying to recognise harassment and bullying that requires conceptual understanding rather than just placing a wrong word or idea. The time is right for companies to review digital content and take down offensive material.

Technology plays a vital role in content moderation, but we can't rely solely on it for sensitive tasks. Content moderators add their expertise to ensure content optimisation for every platform. In the future, there will be greater demand for content moderators.

User-Generated

UGC belongs ethically and legally to the creator of the content. Even in an age of social media, copyright laws are still applicable. In the 2013 case of Agence France Presse v Morel, the U.S. District Court upheld this concept.

Implicit permission works on the assumption that anyone who uploads a photograph or video to a corporate website or tags it with a brand-related hashtag permits the corporate's use of this content. Legal implied permission can be tricky, so companies should include terms and conditions in any content collection campaign.

A.I. Artificial intelligence

A.I. devices of the future will be able to recognise and score more qualities than just the protests within the substance. The substance source and setting carry a relative risk factor that the substance may be illegal, illicit, or not seen. The context and content have a relative risk that the content may be unlawful, criminal, or inappropriate.

Shortly, algorithms will include a sizeable multivariate set of content and context attributes. A relative risk score will be calculated based on attribute rating, and it may determine when something gets announced immediately, delayed, announced, reviewed, posted before, or not. The tracking of attributes will increase over time, and the feedback loop for tracking bad actor activity will be more precise and almost instantaneous.

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Five Content Moderation Mistakes You Must Avoid

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The future of many apps is not only based upon Apple's policies, Google, or other tech giants. It is also based upon user experience.Do you want to make 2021 a safe environment for users?Avoid the most common mistakes in content moderation to prevent, identify and filter objectionable content to protect users' health and safety.

1. Crowdsourcing Moderation

Content moderation has become a necessity in today's digital age. Human moderators are increasingly responsible for scanning online for inappropriate content and ensuring safe communities.

Crowdsourcing moderation is a method of sourcing labor through large groups of moderators online. These individuals often offer very low prices, which can make this option attractive.

Crowdsourced moderators can be anonymous. This makes it difficult to hold them accountable to your company. It also leads to unmotivated moderators that fail to give thorough reviews. A crowdsourced laborer can apply their personal values and perspectives to moderation projects without formal accountability.

Even though crowdsourced moderators take their time reading content before accepting or rejecting them, it doesn't mean that they are able to understand your brand and moderation criteria.

Avoid the risk of your audience being exposed to offensive content by not relying on crowdsourced labourers for moderation. For brands looking for a cost-friendly solution without the risks of crowdsourcing, it will be the best option. This combination of trained professionals and AI allows you to moderate content in real time.

2. Failure to train Moderators

A hybrid moderation approach allows content to be escalated to moderators if AI fails to meet the requirements. Moderators can make more complex decisions about content's tone, context, and style. We see the most common moderation errors as a failure to properly train moderators to understand the complexities of your brand’s content guidelines and to provide them with clear rules.

It is not easy to train moderators because each rule requires an in-depth understanding of all possible edge cases. Rules that are easily interpreted, such as asking content moderators to flag images for "irresponsible alcohol" or "doing anything dangerous", should be avoided.

For example, take "irresponsible alcohol." Your definition of wine will differ from that of a brand selling games to children if you are selling wine to adults. You can reduce uncertainty by clearly defining the rules and criteria for your human moderators.

You must define your brand's standards to ensure a successful content moderation team and strategy. Moderation should not be left up for interpretation. Start by defining who and what your audience values.

Moderators who are trained to deal with violations falling into the grey areas can make final photo moderation decisions that conform to your brand standards. This will create safer communities. Look for moderators who are highly skilled and continuously assessed for speed and accuracy.

3. Underestimating the importance of Community Guidelines

Your community guidelines are the norm for online behavior. Your members won't be able to know what content is acceptable or inappropriate without community guidelines.

Moderators will be required to spend time deliberating every time a post is removed from the online community. Moderators will remove posts for no apparent reason. This can lead to frustration on the part of users.

You should create new community guidelines if you don't have them in place or if they are too vague and outdated. Guidelines that link back to your organization's mission include what you do and how you do it, who you serve, and what unique value your organization offers to consumers and employees.

After your company has established a foundation, it is time to establish guidelines for the community.

Your guidelines will be open to interpretation if you just rattle off a list of rules.

It is better to give specific examples and be clear from the start. You can give examples, such as guns and explosives, of what your online community does not tolerate.

You can also spell out the exact actions that will be taken to address violations of your guideline and make sure you enforce them by taking down any content that is in violation. If members suspect that content is in violation of the guidelines, you can provide them with flags and other tools to help them report it.

You don't have to rely on your online community for reporting other people who are suspected or actually violating community standards. Although most people will report others who violate a standard, it is possible for them to report someone with a different perspective.

Remember that content moderation goes beyond following community guidelines and deleting content frequently based on flagged or reported posts. Community guidelines are only one component of a content moderation strategy. It also requires a combination of human moderation and technology.

4. All Content Moderation Should Be Transferred to Technology

It may be tempting to give up all content moderation tasks and turn your attention to technology and algorithms. It's clear that AI is responsible in large part for the task of detecting and removing millions posts that contain drugs, hate speech or weapons. Too often, technology replaces human moderators and creates new problems.

AI has difficulty understanding context. This can lead to rejections of harmless content and, more worryingly, the failure to identify harmful submissions. AI is unable to distinguish nuance in speech and images like humans, so AI that has been trained on millions of examples might still make mistakes that humans won't.

Relying on AI alone for content moderation could lead to errors in moderation decisions, such as false positives, which occur when the system determines that a piece is problematic while it is not.

False negatives can also occur when the moderation system accepts content it determines not to be problematic.

Because automation is able to detect nudity more accurately than it can recognize hate speech's complexities, moderation gives the impression that it places more emphasis on controlling someone's body than speech that may be offensive. Your company might accidentally offend users that you were trying to protect.

Technology can be a hindrance to content moderation. Don't underestimate the value of human moderators, who can discern gray areas. Instead, you can use AI to remove offensive content like hate symbols and pornography. For more specific brand-specific criteria, a human team can review the content.

Tech failure: In its attempts to ban violent groups, Facebook earlier this year removed a harmless Revolutionary War Reenactment Page.

5. Not Prioritising Moderators' Mental Health

When moderating user generated content (UGC), it's obvious that AI alone is not sufficient. Human teams are able to make complex decisions and they should be involved in content moderation.

However, it would be a mistake to bring in human moderators without taking steps to ensure their mental health and a safe working environment. Live moderators are responsible for reviewing content throughout the day to ensure it is safe and in line with your brand's standards.

Moderators might be exposed to disturbing or even harmful content in the course of protecting the public and your company's image.

Moderation teams are there to protect your brand's reputation and other tasks. You must support them and remind them of their importance. You could also be accused of disregarding their working conditions as many brands have done in the past. This could lead to a negative reputation for your company as someone who isn't concerned about the mental well-being of its workforce.

Mental health programming is essential to protect live moderators. Partner with a professional moderation agency to ensure that moderation is done in-house and crowdsource.

Professional moderation agencies provide a complete mental health program for anyone moderating content on your platform. They also rotate moderators to less serious projects regularly, giving them a break in seeing the upsetting content every day.

WebPurify recommends asking potential content moderation partners these questions to ensure that they are qualified.

The Takeaway

It is a mistake to only invest in one moderation tool. You can make sure that both the human and digital sides of the screen are safe.

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10 Promising Trends in Content Moderation you shouldn’t overlook

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To ensure that they meet all demands for content, businesses must utilise the appropriate content moderation solutions. If you're looking to improve the existing system, here's a guide to 10 trending topics in content moderation which can help guide you in the proper direction.

1. Improve your content quality management

The quality management process is the primary area of concern and is a vital element in ensuring trust and security by ensuring that the content being published online is in accordance with the rules for the website or platform.

Content moderation companies perform a filtering of content to improve and improve the quality of the content currently available by identifying errors in accordance with the policy for content. Content quality managers devise an appropriate plan of action to create a great content program that boost the reputation of your company.

2. Follow the legal requirements

When drafting rules for community members and the content guidelines for any platform, businesses must be transparent about their legal guidelines to ensure they are clear and efficient.

Users must not abuse their platform by posting content that is inappropriate. A transparent moderator for content must be able to make a sound decision by taking into consideration legal aspects like knowledge of copyright, handling of appropriate information, trademarks, as well as IP rights.

3. Be cautious when dealing with spamming content

In the midst of a rapid shift in consumer behaviour, users are coming up with fresh ideas each day, posting content that is spam on your social media platforms. A significant number of people respond to them, which can damage the brand's image.

A content moderator manages the comments made by coming up with creative solutions and making an informed choice so that it does not hinder users' experience. Content moderators improve your security website and come up with unique solutions to ensure that your website is stocked with the top content at any time.

4. Create a hybrid approach that involves using both technology and humans

Popular trends in content moderation are the use of a hybrid method that includes the judgement and decision-making that is made by machine automation as well as humans.

If the flow of content by users on your site is huge, then human moderators aren't capable of completing the task efficiently, which is why there is the necessity of an automated procedure to prevent any negative effects on your content, while humans can focus on more inventive tasks.

5. Consider the privacy and security of your online visitors

Security threats to cyber security and criminal acts like data breaches, malware as well as identity theft, are just a few of the most frequent concerns of internet users. Therefore it is essential to ensure that your content isn't compromising the security and privacy of your users on the internet.

Your outsourcing company for content moderation must eliminate the people who harm other users by spreading fake information, creating fake identities, and spreading threats and spam to ensure that your users are safe when they use your social media sites or your website . By doing this, you also enhance your user satisfaction.

6. Make use of highly-skilled moderators for content to help create content that is more efficient.

In light of the increasing popularity of violent and hateful content, companies are trying to alter the content on their platforms by using moderators for content. A lot of platform owners are hiring skilled content moderators who are multi-skilled to help them reduce the time spent on moderation.

It can be accomplished by observing the rules of your business and following global standards, being aware of the various regional languages and replacing outdated content with high-quality content as well as coming up with innovative concepts and sharing views about various issues.

7. Be sure to adhere strictly to the real-world guidelines for content

If you choose to moderate your content using a company for content moderation and you decide to hire a content moderation company, it is imperative that you adhere to the actual-world guidelines for content and community policies.

Your policy on content should be flexible to ensure that it can assist in getting rid of gaps and grey areas which are based on sensitive topics such as religion and politics. Moderators of content should develop specific trends in marketing and provide recommendations for policies that will keep any controversy out of the content.

8. Create a method that is based on location

Each country has its own unique social as well as cultural concerns. If your website serves an audience from all over the world, you must meet the needs of your audience for content. This can be accomplished through outsourcing your content management services to ensure that moderators are able to manage content from different regions and develop the most effective localised strategy and strategies.

9. Make sure you do not include misinformation or misleading guidance in your content

Both the digital automation tools and human content moderators must utilise the most current trends in content and most recent details to help make the process seamless and efficient.

This way, they are able to find and report any spam posts to prevent confusion or false information. Content moderators are also able to cross-check the information since any mistake of even the smallest amount could affect your brand's value as well as its reputation, and even result in trolls.

10. Eliminate offensive and objectionable content

A competent and knowledgeable moderator for content must be familiar with the laws and regulations governing violence and hate speech. Content should not include hateful remarks about different communities, or contain any language that could affect the sentiments of your viewers. The offensive and objectionable content must be removed immediately by the moderator for content.

Conclusion

Content moderation services will make your platform or community a better one to increase brand's loyalty and engagement with users and safeguard your online audience. To ensure your platform is secure for your customers, companies must maintain consistency, integrity and honesty in their code of conduct.

Being up to date with the most recent trend in content moderation will require some investment however, once you've done it you can expand your site and social media networks by observing and filtering content efficiently. By implementing the ability to moderate content, you can expand and strengthen your brand's reputation by keeping an eye on the content that users create.