The Unsung Heroes of Facebook Groups Moderation: A Case Study of Moderation Practices and Tools

Volunteer moderators have the power to shape society through their influence on online discourse. However, the growing scale of online interactions increasingly provides significant hurdles for meaningful moderation. Further, limited tools exist to assist volunteers with their work. With our work, we aim to meaningfully explore the potential of AI-driven, automated moderation tools for social media to assist volunteer moderators. One key aspect is to investigate to which degree tools must become personalizable and context-sensitive to not just delete unsavory content and ban trolls, but to adapt to the millions of online communities on social media mega-platforms that rely on volunteer moderation. In this paper, we conduct semi-structured interviews with 26 Facebook Group moderators in order to better understand moderation tasks and their associated challenges. Through qualitative analysis of the interview data, we identify and address the most pressing themes in the challenges they face daily. Using interview insights, we conceptualize three tools with automated features that assist in their most challenging tasks and problems. We then evaluate the tools for usability and acceptance using an adapted TAM survey with 22 of the same moderators. Qualitative and descriptive analyses of the survey data show that context-sensitive, agency-maintaining tools in addition to trial experience are key to mass-adoption by volunteer moderators in order to build trust in the validity of the moderation technology.