While live-streaming has provided a whole new way to communicate and connect with audiences, one of the downfalls of the real-time interaction process - particularly for female streamers - is the brazen nature of some commenters, who will often fill streams with inappropriate, unacceptable remarks, turning some people away from even streaming at all.
It's offensive, it's childish - and now, Periscope is adding a new measure to help limit it, beyond its existing controls, by adding chat moderators to help monitor stream comments.
As per Periscope:
"Conversation is at the heart of Periscope. We’ve always believed in the power of live video to bring people together to share an experience. But, sometimes people take advantage of the real-time, open nature of Periscope and send comments that detract from everyone else’s conversation. We’re committed to ensuring conversation on Periscope is healthy, and are rolling out an update that allows broadcasters to select moderators for the comments in their broadcasts."
Using the new process, broadcasters will now be able to assign moderators before they go live, and those moderators will have the capacity to mute commenters during the stream. You'll then be able to review a listing of all users muted (by you or your moderators) during the broadcast and decide whether you want to block them from your future streams.
The process will come in handy for those looking to put more focus on the content itself, while enlisting third-party help to keep things civil in the comments.
As noted, this adds to Periscope's existing comment moderation measures, including the capacity for all viewers to report inappropriate comments and vote on whether the commenter should be allowed to remain in the viewing group.
On Periscope in particular, this is a significant problem - various users have reported concerns with both the content and comments on Periscope streams, and the seeming lack of action by Periscope to address such. While this won't fix the issue, it does add another element to help clean up the platform and keep things civil, broadening the capacity for streamers to self-manage their content.
On one hand, it feels like something that shouldn't be left to users to control, but on the other, it's impossible to censor content in real time - hence issues with self-harm, pornography and other violations via streams. Again, this isn't a fix, but it's another tool to help, which will benefit streamers looking to make better use of Periscope.
To assign chat moderators in your Periscope stream:
- Select “Comment Moderation” on your Periscope profile
- Tap “My Moderators”
- Search mutual follows for the moderators you’re looking to add and select them (accounts shown with “Unavailable to moderate.” subtext can’t be selected)
- Tap “Add” in the upper right corner of the screen
The option is now live for all users - but note, you can only enable moderators through Periscope itself, not Twitter streams.