The 2016 Presidential Election changed everything. It bred paradigm shifts across all sectors, including the uprising of fake news within digital media. The phenomenon spread misinformation across the internet, with 52 percent of Americans feeling that online news websites regularly report fake news stories in the United States.
Now, organizations and users alike buckle under the burden of misinformation. Users must somehow find a source of truth, while organizations strive to protect brand reputation and customer experience from the impact of false information.
But where does one even begin?
Start by understanding the root of the issue – why misinformation is so abundant. From there, apply those insights and leverage a modern solution to eradicate the side effects of misinformation.
Let’s take a closer look.
Fake News Finds a Foothold
As society embraced a new technological era, digital channels and user-generated content exploded. As a result, information traveled at the speed of light. That information wasn’t always accurate.
Be it fake news about a brand or a pressing global issue like COVID-19, users experience a near-constant slew of fabricated online posts, created solely to mislead and misinform. This information typically materializes as clickbait, either designed for economic gain through advertising or to further a political agenda. As such, posts tend to be sensational in nature. So it’s no surprise that 86% of internet users have fallen for fake news tactics at least once.
Barriers to Effective Content Moderation
In today’s uncertain online environment, it is more important than ever to discern between real versus fake, to stop misinformation’s spread. But with organizations dealing with 10 times the amount of content they did previously, this isn’t exactly a cakewalk. Manually reviewing each piece of content – as well as filtering malicious and inaccurate social media posts and product reviews – is time-consuming and cumbersome.
It’s no surprise that content moderation remains a mounting challenge for organizations.
Many have implemented measures to ensure trust and address safety concerns among customers. Some of these measures include setting policies such as protection insurance, requiring background checks and verification, and conducting a manual review of rumors and fact-checking.
However, as the volume of content grows by the day, so does the feat of manual verification and authentication. Organizations must rethink their approach to content moderation.
Misinformation, Meet AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) is arguably one of the most effective tools to combat fake news today. Leveraging deep-learning algorithms, AI solutions help organizations efficiently rate content for authenticity and determine accuracy. These AI-based platforms also continuously analyze and learn to recognize certain patterns and words through automated cognitive intelligence, making the moderation process quicker and smarter each time.
With a deep understanding of these far-reaching benefits, Sutherland introduced a Content Moderation solution to vet and filter out contentious, harmful, and inappropriate content, thus creating a safe and trustworthy online environment for organizations and their communities.
While content moderation’s future is AI-defined, it is important to strike a balance between human and machine. As such, organizations must deploy a combination of human and AI content moderation capabilities. Agents leverage empathy and situational thinking, while AI safely, accurately, and effectively vets high volumes of multimedia content. Together, they create experiences engineered for the future.
Accurate Information, Better Experiences
Through this combination of human and AI, organizations stagnate the spread of misinformation and focus on what matters – creating valuable content and a quality customer experience. Content moderation empowers both brands and users alike, leading to accurate representation and informed decisions.
To learn more about how AI enables your organization to effectively moderate content across various channels, get in touch with our experts today.