Building an integrated comment moderation system – towards a semi-automatic moderation tool

Abstract

The past decade has been characterized by a strong increase in the use of social media and a continuous growth of public online discussion. With the failure of purely manual moderation, platform operators started searching for semi-automated solutions, where the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques is promising. However, this requires huge financial investments for algorithmic implementations, data collection, and model training, which only big players can afford. To support smaller or medium-sized media enterprises (SME), we developed an integrated comment moderation system as an IT platform. This platform acts as a service provider and offers Analytics as a Service (AaaS) to SMEs. Operating such a platform, however, requires a robust technology stack, integrated workflows and well-defined interfaces between all parties. In this paper, we develop and discuss a suitable IT architecture and present a prototypical implementation.