Visual content moderation is everywhere in our online experiences today, whether we realize it or not. From social media and online gaming to media outlets and education platforms, the need to make digital environments safe for everyone has brought about the necessity for filtering user-generated content—especially the abundant images, videos, and live streamings. 

Content moderation has changed dramatically over the last decade thanks to machine learning algorithms. A while ago, most content had to be reviewed by human moderators, which was a slow and potentially harmful process for the people involved. With the rapid growth of online content, it became apparent that content moderation needs a technical boost. 

Artificial intelligence has contributed to a massive upgrade in the moderation process. It has brought scalability that can match the sheer amount of content constantly uploaded online. Moderation platforms powered by the evolution of image recognition have additionally revolutionized the filtering process for visual content, as they can automatically remove the most harmful, inappropriate, and illegal items. 

To get an idea of visual content moderation’s current applications, let’s review eight of its most prominent use cases and how it’s improving users’ online environments. 

1. Social Media Platforms

Visual content moderation is of utmost importance for social media platforms. They are often under scrutiny because they handle inappropriate content, such as violence, extremism, hate speech, explicit content, and more. 

Moderation for social media platforms is especially challenging due to a few key factors — the sheer amount of user-generated content, real-time publishing and circulation, and nuances in context. It takes time and adjustments for algorithms to attune to spotting cultural differences in content. The same goes for finding the right approach and applying different tolerance levels towards sensitive content depending on the cultural background.  

Striking the balance between being lenient with harmful content and unnecessary censoring is a daunting task. The scalability and growing accuracy of computer vision is thus of immense help in content moderation for images, video, and live streaming.   

2. E-commerce Platforms and Classified Ads

The application of visual content moderation in e-commerce and classified ads is wide today. These platforms collect a vast amount of user data—not only through user-generated content. They also gather information through cookies, user profiling, and preference tracking, which feeds into the analysis of their user base and respective strategies. 

Some of the biggest issues that such platforms face include controlling and removing inappropriate and counterfeit product listings, as well as scams and fraud by bad actors. 

AI-powered image content moderation provides a way to handle the diversity and volume of product listings and to ensure the policy compliance of all posts and user accounts. 

3. Online Gaming and Virtual Worlds

Just like social media and e-commerce, online gaming, and virtual world platforms deal with abundant amounts of user-generated content. 

All the different elements in the virtual environment, such as user avatars, gaming assets, and exchanges between users, require moderation to prevent exposure to harmful and inappropriate content.  

Live streams are a particularly challenging aspect of visual content moderation for online gaming and virtual worlds. Real-time moderation is specific and requires a robust and well-planned moderation approach that AI can offer. 

4. Online Forums and Community Platforms

Online forums and community platforms are other types of platforms that rely heavily on user-generated content, which automatically means extensive content moderation. 

Online forums are often thematic, while community platforms can be attached to a certain brand, game, or product. 

In both cases, users contribute text and visual content in their exchanges with other community members. Content moderation thus aims to make the online environment safe while also providing users with the freedom to express themselves and communicate. 

5. Dating Platforms 

Dating websites and apps need to be particularly careful in their functioning because users expect a truly safe environment for their personal exchanges.

As with other online platforms, user-generated content must be screened to protect the community and allow free and safe communication. 

Visual AI is of immense help in moderating the visual content shared among dating platform users.  

6. Education and Training Platforms

Upholding quality standards is key for the success of education platforms, and like all other online platforms, they are susceptible to a number of content risks. 

Stopping plagiarism and copyright infringement, as well as monitoring the quality and compliance of educational content are thus of utmost importance for educational platforms. 

This requires robust visual content moderation, having in mind that a large part of educational materials today are in the form of videos — and AI-powered content moderation is the logical answer.  

7. News and Media Outlets

News and media outlets are facing unprecedented challenges in the digital age. Fake news, doctored content, and misinformation are abundant, creating a constant sense of uncertainty about what we can accept as true. 

To protect the truth in these interesting times, news channels and media platforms have to rely also on content moderation for their digital outlets — both for their own content and for user-generated content. 

Platforms that allow user comments on news content have to moderate large amounts of data to filter out misinformation, hate speech, and spam — and computer vision is a trusted tool in this process. 

8. Corporate Compliance and Governance

Content moderation is not applied only in user online platforms but has its place in corporate management, too. 

Data protection is of utmost importance for large companies that need to handle large amounts of data and have big teams. 

Visual content moderation based on AI comes in especially handy in spotting sensitive data being shared or distributed in breach of privacy policies. 

Learn How Visual Content Moderation Can Help Your Business

Visual content moderation is a must-have tool for ensuring user safety across various types of industries today. 

Powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, Imagga’s computer vision platform is a trusted partner in optimizing visual content moderation.  
To learn how you can embed it in your business and get started, just contact us.