Moderating social channels during COVID-19 presents brands with new and different challenges
Right now, social media teams cannot rely on the approach that has previously worked. In a pandemic, Amber Robinson explains, brands will have to manage their social accounts very differently.
Last week, a rumour that Oprah Winfrey had been arrested on child pornography charges swept across the globe. It was, of course, false, but it showed just how quickly misinformation can get out of hand when people are more panicked than usual and spending more time online.
The current coronavirus pandemic caused another unusual situation: Facebook and Google forced many of their online content moderators to take leave (the work is highly sensitive and often cannot always be done from home) and are relying more and more on artificial intelligence for moderation. People like me who work in community management are pleased to see that bots are currently not as highly skilled as actual people and there were many Facebook posts automatically removed in error.
Clearly, the systems we relied on before cannot be relied on now. And it has implications for brands managing their own social accounts amid global uncertainty.
