The company has announced a new comment moderation system that allows other users to vote on comments (like downvoting) that are trollish or spam, as well as report them for removal if they’re serious enough. Additionally, broadcasters can block and remove users from their streams, and commenters can select who is able to view their comments. At the same time, after a comment is reported, several randomly selected viewers will be asked to vote on whether the comment in question “is spam, abuse, or looks okay”.
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The result of the votes are then revealed to those randomly selected, and if the majority agrees the comment was abusive, that user will have their commenting rights temporarily disabled. In the case a comment is found inappropriate, the user who commented will be disabled from the broadcast.
Periscope said the system is created to be “lightweight” and quick.
Just last week, a report from Axiom Capital termed Periscope as an “underappreciated” opportunity. It also-as anyone who’s ever moderated a comment section can tell you-sounds like something that will never work in the real world, but live streaming app Periscope is going to try it, starting yesterday.
If the jury finds that it should, the offender will receive a minute-long ban from commenting, with another problematic comment resulting in the person being muted for the entire broadcast. The thinking, according to senior Periscope engineer Aaron Wasserman, is that unlike most other social platforms, Periscope streams are live and comments happen fast, which means Periscope needs to move fast, too. Anytime the user make post the application studies the comments posted. Once the report has been made, other users can then jump in and weigh in if the comment was indeed troll-ish. It’s also opt-out: if you don’t want to participate, you can opt out of voting in the app’s settings, and you can also opt out of having your broadcasts moderated.
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The Twitter-owned video streaming app said “people in a broadcast are best suited to determine what’s okay and what’s not”.
