Is the color of the text in this sentence black or blue? The answer is obvious isn’t it? It`s blue of course. I thought I would post this question in order to shed light behind the content moderation process and how we work hard every day working to prevent inappropriate and offensive content from appearing online.

ICUC Moderation Services has been moderating online user generated content since 2002, and in that time we have moderated hundreds of millions of messages, photos and videos for some of the world’s biggest brands. Currently my clients rely on the expertise of ICUC to minimize the risk that comes from participating in an online world that is increasingly being populated by user generated content. These clients rely on us because they trust us. They trust the many processes, procedures, and best practices we have implemented to ensure minimal risk is exposed when moderating their online content or community.

Our moderators are well trained, spending weeks (and sometimes months) of training along with an ongoing training program. We conduct regular workshops discussing hate /racism and human rights issues. We work very closely with our clients in creating and managing ongoing updates to the content moderation guidelines.

Unfortunately however, it is not as easy as reading a paragraph and making a decision that is black or white. What might be offensive to the eyes of one reader might be clearly agreeable to another – or simply offensive but not hateful. This is proven every time we sit down with a client to craft a set of moderation guidelines.

As well as we are prepared, and as knowledgeable as we can be, offensive content is unfortunately still going to make it online and onto a moderated website. Simply put, achieving 100% perfection is difficult if not impossible because when dealing with a person’s point of view, it is never black or white. What is entirely possible however is through both technology and people, to limit, manage and reduce the amount of offensive content that can potentially appear on a website.

Let me use this analogy to better set expectations. It has become an accepted norm that enterprise applications should operate 99.9% of the time. So if that’s the case, let’s then assume the same principles apply for online content moderation. A website that generates 100,000 comments per month will have about 100 offensive and inappropriate comments each month that will offend someone. Think about 100 comments that spit vitriol, hate, abuse and anything else that you can think of that is offensive.

Of course the alternative is having no content moderation at all and I don`t have to tell anyone what kind of can of worms that will open. While I personally agree with an open discussion and freedom of speech, it is not for everyone. I will add that if people are offended by what they see up there now, you should see what we have had to remove.

In closing, I can assure you we take content moderation very seriously and take the responsibility we have to our clients very seriously. We carry no personal views when conducting our job but simply follow the guidelines that are set in front of us. It is a difficult job, balancing and understanding people’s points of view, but it is a difficult job we are happy and proud to have.