Tackling the “enormous task” of content moderation is the subject of a new World Editors Forum guide.
“Encouraging readers to post online comments allows news media to connect with audiences, but the comments are too often uncivil, hateful, obscene or downright insulting,” says WEF executive director Cherilyn Ireton. “Moderating online conversations is an enormous task for news media.”
Online comment moderation: emerging best practices has been researched and produced by the WEF with support from the Open Society Foundationsand aims to promote “robust and civil online conversation”.
The reportis based on a survey of 104 news organisations from 63 countries, plus a selection of experts from corporate and academic worlds. It examines key trends, opportunities and best practices.
“The news organisations we spoke to could be broadly divided into two camps: Those who embrace comments from users, and those who essentially see them as a necessary evil,” says Ireton. “Very few organisations – only seven in our sample – didn’t allow comments at all, but nearly all had resource issues.
“Online comment moderation is a costly and time-consuming task. Yet many organisations see the practice as an essential element in fostering a real community around their publication. Comments can increase reader engagement, both in terms of time spent on site, and in terms of loyalty.”
The report can be downloaded free of charge from the WAN-Ifra website at http://wan-ifra.org/online_commenting_report.
Key findings include:
- There was a relatively even split between those who moderate before or after publication.
- Organisations are deleting an average of one in ten comments, primarily because the content is offensive, contains hate speech or bad language, or because it is spam. The topics that attract the most comments are, predictably, politics, societal issues, religions, sports and opinion.
- Editors generally do not believe that moderating comments limits free speech. Most respondents believe there are an infinite number of places online for the public to express their points of view, and it is up to each publication to determine the kind of conversation it wants to host.
- There is a notable lack of awareness about legal issues around the posting of reader comments; who is responsible for what is being said where, and what exactly is illegal, and the best way to deal with this.
- Real name registration versus allowing anonymity is a divisive issue, with no consensus. Though anonymity encourages participation, real names lead to better quality conversations.
- Conversations are better and more civil when journalists participate. But some don’t believe it is appropriate for journalists to be involved in an area which belongs to the readers.
- The majority of publications don’t moderate their Facebook pages and other social networks as heavily as their own sites, because the networks are not their territory and because the real identify policies are seen to make the discussion less controversial.
- Some news organisations highlight the ‘best’ comments or most active commentators in some way, although many have some way to go in this area in terms of how useful they actually make these functions to readers.