If you’ve ever run a large Facebook group, you know how much spam, trolls, off-topic posts, or other issues that end the conversation can keep the community feeling alive. Now Facebook is trying to simplify the monumental task of keeping the peace in these online areas by introducing new automatic moderation features that let you automatically deal with problematic commenters and messages before your group gets into chaos.
Facebook’s automatic moderation features, known as the “Admin Assistant,” are located at the top of the left sidebar of your Facebook group – assuming you currently have access. Facebook is slowly rolling out the feature on groups and group admins so you may not see them just yet. However, read on so you know what to do with these settings once they are available.
Click the link in the sidebar to start setting up the Admin Assistant for your group. You will be taken to a page that looks like this:
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These tools allow you to set certain criteria for the children of posts that are considered violating your group’s posting logs and decide what to do next. You can choose from three outcomes: reject a post, remove a published post, or turn off commenting on a post – and set separate rules for triggering each effect. For example, for the “Reject Incoming Posts” option, you can choose:
And if those aren’t enough, you can choose your own mix of criteria (at least from the options Facebook offers you) by clicking See more options Shortcut:
Within each criterion you can choose even more options for what you want to do if a user breaks a “rule”. For example, if someone in your group continues to link to an external site you’ve blocked, you can set up a rule that automatically rejects the post and mutes whoever keeps posting the link:
My most used feature is the simple “keyword” rule that allows you to automatically decline posts that contain certain words or topics that should not be covered in the group. I’m also a fan of the automated tools that allow you to turn off comments for posts that are controversial (judged by the number of comments they have earned, the number of reports other users have made about the post, or the number of reports that other users have made about the post, or the number of reviews) Language found in comments). This could be a very helpful tool to help people relax if they get upset about something quickly, or at least to give you the option to turn comments back on after a warning just to keep everyone civic.
Up to this point, any action your auto-moderator rules take on your behalf can be undone in the Activity Log. This should be checked from time to time to make sure your filters haven’t accidentally caught someone who tried to create a post in accordance with your group’s rules. It’s a shame that you can’t automatically send them a quick apology message as well.
