Reactive moderation, or not moderating unless a user reports content, is the lowest level of moderation you are required to provide by law.
Surprisingly many managers and administrators of interactive websites or communities aren’t aware that they must have a facility for any user to contact the site for anything including reporting content.
The effects of not responding to or removing content in a timely fashion could even have significant legal implications for the brand involved – this risk is not reduced by using an externally hosted site like Facebook or YouTube. As the administrator of a site or space hosting user-generated content you take on legal liability for the removal of the content where necessary.
[For more information on Is Your Social Media Breaking the Law? Check out our free down-loadable eBook]
Reactive moderation relies on communities maintaining the terms and conditions of an interactive site out of the goodness of their hearts or a strong feeling of ownership to ensure quality control (how many brands can boast they’ve created community loyalty like that?)
Reactive moderation is a great addition to help post-moderation prioritise and get to offensive or inappopriate content quickly or point out problems or issues which may have been missed in pre-moderation (it happens, for example not all news topics can be pre-empted in official community guidelines, not all types of offensive words or phrases can be easily seen or listed in official guidelines).
Summary:
Pros: Provides basic level of legal protection, helps community support official moderation, prioritises moderation
Cons: Doesn’t remove all legal liability, often falls on non-professionals to manage/respond
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