Answering Your Most Frequently Asked Questions.How does your moderation work?Is your moderation done by AI, or by humans?Who sets the standards for your moderation?Who do you work for? How do you select your partners?Who owns OpenWeb?Why did my post get deleted / Why have I been banned? How can I dispute these decisions?Isn’t this censorship?Doesn’t the First Amendment give me the right to freedom of speech on the internet?How is my data being used?
How does your moderation work?OpenWeb is building the social layer of the web. We’re a platform through which the brands you love host active, vibrant communities. Brands choose to partner with OpenWeb because we have an unmatched track record of creating online spaces that encourage an open, engaging community experience while maintaining a high standard of safety for community members. 1. Our technology strives to incentivize and promote healthy conversations. We continuously improve our technology to promote constructive, reciprocal conversations over toxic (even if extremely engaging) user contributions.2. We endeavor to demote and remove toxic conversations. We build and implement tools such as: Language detection, user reputation scores, community signals, sorting algorithms, and more to help detect and remove or reduce the prominence of toxic content.However, we know that every community is different, and “safety” can have different meanings in different contexts. We work closely with our brand and publisher partners to reflect their community’s values. In other words, while we maintain a base level of community safety across our network to which all of OpenWeb partners agree, communities hosted by OpenWeb have their own individual sets of standards enforced to the satisfaction of the partner.Think of it this way: OpenWeb’s network-wide moderation standards set a strong and stable foundation upon which the sites you visit may choose to build additional sets of rules for their community. Some may allow certain words, behaviors, etc. while others may not. OpenWeb’s role is to enforce these rules and uphold a standard of safety that both we and our brand partner find suitable for their community.
Is your moderation done by AI, or by humans?At OpenWeb, we employ a multi-layered approach to moderation that leverages the latest advances in AI and Machine Learning. However, even the most advanced AI has its limits: any content that requires a closer look is sent to our staff of human moderators to ensure that the right decision is made, with the specific community’s guidelines in mind. Usually, our moderation staff only reviews user content when a specific moderation decision has been appealed by a user, if a piece of content was flagged by the community, and/or if our models encounter content that they just can’t yet quite understand.Read more about our Moderation Standards.
Who sets the standards for your moderation?At OpenWeb, we know that every community is different. We work closely with our brand and publisher partners to reflect their community’s values. While we maintain a base level of community safety across our network through our global moderation standards to which all of OpenWeb partners agree, communities hosted by OpenWeb have their own individual sets of standards enforced to the satisfaction of the partner.Think of it this way: OpenWeb’s network-wide moderation standards set a strong and stable foundation upon which the sites you visit may choose to build additional sets of rules for their community. Some may allow certain words, behaviors, etc., while others may not. OpenWeb’s role is to enforce these rules and uphold a standard of safety that both we and our partner find suitable for their community.Read more about our Moderation Standards.
Who do you work for? How do you select your partners?At OpenWeb, we see our customers as partners. OpenWeb partners leveraging the community experience of OpenWebOS are, most often, online content publishers that meet our criteria of journalistic standards. You can learn more about our Publisher Standards here.
Who owns OpenWeb?OpenWeb is a privately-owned company headquartered in New York City. We have offices in Canada, The United Kingdom, France, and Israel.
Why did my post get deleted / Why have I been banned? How can I dispute these decisions?OpenWeb works with content publishers and brands around the world to host communities and comments sections. We work closely with our partners to develop their community guidelines, and all decisions carried out in OpenWeb’s moderation process are made in an attempt to uphold those partners’ community guidelines.We encourage all who feel there is an issue with any moderation decision to review the community guidelines provided by the community. If upon reviewing these guidelines you still feel a decision was made in error, please refer to the content publishers’ process for escalating community moderation decisions. OpenWeb does not have a process for intaking requests or questions from partners’ community members.
Isn’t this censorship?At OpenWeb, we believe strongly in the principle of freedom of expression. All OpenWeb community guidelines, including our network-wide moderation standards, are rooted in a respect for this principle. We believe that true freedom of expression is only possible in a safe environment, where individuals are empowered to contribute freely without fear of harassment, personal attack, or prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.
Doesn’t the First Amendment give me the right to freedom of speech on the internet?The protections granted to US citizens by the First Amendment to the US Constitution bans censorship by the government. Private entities, such as publishers, websites, or other online entities, are bound by the provisions of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which permits them to make good faith efforts to remove certain offensive content. Such private entities have discretion in determining their own standards for what constitutes acceptable speech or content.
How is my data being used?Please see our End User Privacy Policy.
How do I delete and remove my profile and all my user data?We uphold the ‘right to delete’ and abide by CCPA and GDPR standards. Please go to Request Account Deletion to delete your user profile and date permanently.