Content moderation and creator incentives mechanism amidst controversial content surges

The content platforms usually offer monetary rewards to creators to encourage the creation of high-quality content to attract views. This would motivate some creators to incorporate controversial content to generate engagement, which causes the platform’s reputation cost. Therefore, in practice, the platform actively conducts content moderation through various methods. In this paper, we consider two content moderation formats, Pre-Moderation format and Post-Moderation format, depending on whether the moderation takes place before or after the content’s publication. Under Pre-Moderation format, the platform reviews each content before it is released, which makes it less likely to suffer from a high reputation cost. However, the drawback is the potential for mistakenly blocking of high quality content. The platform has the incentive to reward creators to exert effort to attract views only when the platform’s payoff from each view of high-quality content is relatively high. Moreover, a more rigor moderation mechanism may not necessarily benefit the platform and hurt the low-type creators, and a high proportion of controversial-content fans may also not necessarily benefit the low-type creators. Conversely, Post-Moderation format proves more creator-friendly, as it enables each content published without check, though this comes at the expense of a higher reputation cost. Compared to Pre-Moderation format, the platform becomes more likely to provide monetary reward under Post-Moderation format only when the proportion of controversial-content fans is low. The platform’s profit and the creators’ profits can be higher under either moderation format, depending on the monetary reward strategy and the dissemination of low-quality content.