Reply, Delete, or Ignore? Examining How Content Creators Perceive and Select Comment Moderation Strategies

2026-08-05

AI Summary

This study examines how social media creators navigate trade-offs among emotional safety, public image, and algorithmic incentives when selecting comment moderation strategies. Drawing on a large-scale survey of 584 creators and grounded in human-computer interaction theory, the research systematically analyzes cognitive and decision-making processes underlying three primary approaches: deleting, replying to, or ignoring user comments. Findings indicate that deletion best supports emotional safety, while both deletion and replying enhance impression management; replying is widely perceived as yielding the highest algorithmic benefits. Emotional safety and impression management significantly predict creators’ willingness to adopt specific moderation strategies, whereas anticipated algorithmic gains show no significant effect. The study reveals that creators’ moderation behaviors are driven by multiple sociopsychological factors, thereby extending mid-level theoretical perspectives on platform content governance.

Abstract

Content creators on social media sites occupy highly visible positions on their channels. As a result, creators, especially those with large followings, experience disproportionate levels of online harm. To address such harm, they enact a range of moderation strategies, which in turn shape the visibility of content that their audiences encounter. This paper examines how content creators perceive three moderation strategies to address hateful comments (deleting, replying to, or simply ignoring) and how they decide which strategy to deploy. While creator moderation is usually examined through the lens of safety, creators' regulation decisions may also be shaped by concerns about how their actions appear to audiences and how they are rewarded or penalized by platforms' recommendation algorithms. Conducting a survey of 584 content creators, we found that in their view, (1) deleting is the most beneficial for achieving safety, (2) both deleting and replying produce better impression management benefits than ignoring, and (3) replying is perceived to yield the highest algorithmic benefits. Crucially, while expectations of emotional safety and impression management benefits significantly predicted creators' willingness to adopt each comment moderation strategy, perceived algorithmic benefits did not. By unpacking how creators evaluate these trade-offs, this study contributes to HCI research on understanding creator-led, middle-level governance. We conclude with design implications for supporting creators as crucial governance actors without burdening them with sole responsibility for online safety.

Problem

• comment moderation
• content creators
• online harm
• impression management
• algorithmic incentives

Innovation

• comment moderation
• content creators
• algorithmic perception
• impression management
• online safety