Content Quality, Monetization, & Moderation On Subsocial

Because Subsocial is an open and permissionless platform, anyone is free to build applications on top of it, and applications are free to do whatever they want, such as moderate undesirable content. For example, an app focused on dogs probably would not show pictures of cats, or could at the very least not allow them to qualify for Content Staking on that application. Of course, the cats would still be on Subsocial, and available to be liked, but just not on that particular dog-focused application.

This fact becomes extra important as applications start developing algorithms that factor in monetization methods. It makes sense that posts that earn a lot from Content Staking are likely high quality, and should receive more eyeballs. With that in mind, it seems reasonable to “demonetize” low quality content.

“Low quality content” is subjective of course, and as previously mentioned, all content will still be available on-chain. Applications are free to show or hide any content they like, and enable or disable any monetization features whenever they want. As Subsocial is a transparent ecosystem with open and accessible data, anyone is free to build alternative applications to display any content and allow monetization features.

With all of this in mind, moderation on Subsocial is no longer limited to just visibility, but also to monetization, giving application developers a wider range of tools to properly moderate their platforms.

Grill maintains a fairly liberal moderation policy. In general, anything goes, except for NSFW or violent content. Users that are breaking the content policy may have their content demonetized or hidden from Grill. As always, developers are encouraged to build alternative UIs with different flavors and user experiences, to aid in decentralizing the Subsocial ecosystem!