Rules and tips for moderation Copy

Ethical guidelines

In addition to the SRHR moderation guidelines introduced earlier, these basic rules and tips on how to apply them can help you more effectively moderate discussions.

ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR WORKING ON SEXUALITY

Guaranteed Confidentiality is essential to ethical obligations and ensures improved service delivery. It is not the same as anonymity and pertains to protection of information disclosed by and individual in a relationship of trust with the expectation that it will not be divulged to others without permission. Confidentiality should involve discretion and respect for a person’s privacy. It should involve not revealing the identity of the person/ “subject” or their personal information to any unauthorised person.
Beneficence requires providers to do what will be for the users’ best interest.
Non-Exploitation means not taking advantage or abusing a user or group directly or indirectly through the information of power.
Competence requires that individuals work within the boundaries of their abilities based on their education, supervised experience, consultation, study or professional experience and continue to strive to increase their knowledge and skills.
Maintaining Boundaries means maintaining a sense of “separateness” in a relationship. Those unable to maintain proper boundaries may feel disturbed and upset, lose objectivity, express sympathy over empathy, offer advice, become overly familiar and unintentionally increase the users’ dependence on them.
Non- malfeasance advocates the principle of “do no harm”.
Non-judgemental means ensuring that one’s personal judgement, opinions, values and attitudes do not impinge on and /nor influence the work we are doing.
Informed choice and consent include a process in which the user is made aware of what they are involved in and what possible implications or effects the decision they are taking may have. Once they make a choice based on that information, that would be informed choice, even if it does not agree with your own line of thought.

Adapted from TARSHI Guidelines for good Helpline practice, 2003

How to categorise and respond to comments

Here’s an example that demonstrates these basic rules based on the categories that you can find in the SRHR moderation guidelines from the previous chapter.

Case Study: Discussing difficult situations with reference to more sensitive SRHR subjects – Love Matters Naija, Nigeria

Curated posts are essential to engage the young Nigerian audience. When a post is shared with the intent to inspire dialogue, it includes a call to action and encourages users to share their thoughts and experiences on the topic. Audience members who have experiences relating to the story or topic shared, often accept the invitation to respond and connect with other users in the comment section, below the post, or directly using the inbox (one-to-one conversation). 

A wealth of information and insights can be drawn from such posts and the moderators can then react accordingly which may include referrals to partners for counselling, legal and / or social aid.  

This post on the contextually controversial topic of abortion reached over 60,000 people. Comments on the subject reached 444, including interactions among users with moderated guidance. 19 personal experiences were shared via the inbox, including multiple abortions, unsafe practice with near death experiences, abandonment, mental health impact and ostracization.  4 of these were referred to our sexual reproductive health partner, Marie Stopes for follow up support services and post-care. 

How to deal with opposing viewpoints and hate speech

Hate speech, including personal attacks, discrimination, prejudice and abuse, should be handled with care:

 Opposing viewpoints in the form of comments on posts are not deleted unless they contain extreme ’hate speech’.
Our moderators engage with users who comment with toxic (disrespectful, unreasonable) language to encourage them to express their views in a positive, respectful manner.
In the cases of extreme hate speech, comments are hidden or deleted, and the user is asked to follow community guidelines and engage respectfully.
Users who ignore the guidelines and persistently engage in hate speech will be blocked in the interest of inclusivity of the larger community. This is necessary to build and maintain a trusted online community where views can be expressed safely.  After banning a user, the circumstances can be logged in a report.

The video below offers a summary of the ways in which you can handle negative comments:

Moderation by representative teams

The content and editorial teams of the Love Matters platforms are diverse and include (where applicable) people of different genders, sexualities, regions, races, religions, tribes and socio-economic classes.

As online moderation of discussions between users on the digital platforms is an important tool to stimulate inclusive dialogue, it is essential to ensure that the moderators and community managers of the platforms are also truly representative of the online communities in the countries they operate in. A sex-positive attitude and mindset are essential attributes for a Love Matters moderator, this way the moderators themselves can encourage pleasure positive discussion on sex and sexuality and encourage open, honest debate among and between users to create an inclusive SRHR digital community.

Case Study: Driving online discussion on Facebook by sharing user-generated content, Love Matters Naija, Nigeria  

Users share their personal stories or questions via direct messaging using the Facebook inbox to be reviewed for public post. The Love Matters Naija moderators engage the user to share details by asking a few questions to validate the story and draw more information for clarity. Then moderators request the user’s consent to anonymously share the story or question posted on the wider public Facebook page. The interaction is tagged with the SRHR thematic pillar (for tracking and monitoring purposes) and queued to the social media editor for calendar planning, design and post.

The moderators then encourage the users who share their stories to follow our daily activities in order to spot when their story is published. The digital community responds very positively to seeing their own experiences reflected in the content shared. Many of them read the community comments and come back via the inbox to share feedback on what they gathered as valuable insights, advice or to expand the conversation with the moderator for advice.

Go to Assignment 7.2.2: Be the moderator!

Key takeaways

Moderation is a tool to build an inclusive digital community
Moderation is an important tool to communicate with users and bring marginalised groups into the conversations
Moderation can be applied to create a safe space where young people are encouraged to think critically and engage in constructive discussion and feel comfortable to discuss more sensitive SRHR topics
Moderating conversations is complex
Different frameworks and grids can support moderators in their daily work
Comments can be categorised as: Supportive/constructive; Inquisitive; Negative/unconstructive; Antagonistic; Abusive/offensive. The response of the moderator can depend on these categories
Extra attention should be paid to polarised situations and its response