Moderation, Roles & Privileges

In order to have moderation privileges, a user has to be assigned a role. Currently, we offer three tiers of roles for users and one tier for admins

Moderation Overview

We determine a user's moderation capabilities based on their current role.

Roles	Description
None	The user has no moderation privileges
Moderator	The user can assert general moderation privileges on other users
Super-Moderator	The user can assert general moderation privileges and be exempt from moderation from other users
Global-Admin (Admin Only)*	The user can assign the roles of others, assert all moderation privileges and be exempt from moderation

*This role cannot be assigned to a user, but only to an Admin.

When you are routed to ASC Console after clicking Go to console in your newly created application in Amity Portal, you will be logged in as a super-admin. This is different from the global-admin and must NOT be used for normal administration tasks for the following reasons:

1. It cannot generate an Admin API access token used in making server-to-server API calls.

2. It must be reserved for operations that only a super-admin can perform such as uploading a push notification certificate.

You must create a new admin account for normal administration tasks.

Change User Role

You can promote a user's role from a member to a moderator. Alternatively, a community moderator can also be demoted to a member.

These are the steps to change a user's role:

1. In the left menu, select Community > Communities.

2. In the Community Management page, select a community.

3. In the community's page, click Members tab.

4. Select the member and click the Change user role button.

5. In the Change role pop-up, select the user's new role and click Save to submit.

Create Role

You can create a new role with customized permissions by following these steps:

1. in the left menu, select Users > Roles.

2. In the Roles & Permissions page, click the Create a new role button on the upper right.
3. In the Create role page, provide a name for the role that you will create.

4. Customize the permissions by selecting from the list in the Permissions section on the right.

5. Click Create.

Admin Moderation Privileges

Amity Social Cloud Console provides administrators the ability to observe and control messages in channels.

Moderation tools range from automatic operations such as the blocklisting of words/phrases to controlled operations such as the manual banning and muting of users.

Blocklisting

Blocklisting is used to block certain words from being sent in Amity's Chat and Social SDK. When a word is blocklisted, anytime a user attempts to send a message, comment, or a post with that word, it will not be sent.

Contents that are moderated are:

• Messages

• Posts

• Comments

• Poll questions and answers

Contents that are not moderated include:

• Community names

• Community category names

• Channel names

• User display names

• File names

• Reaction names

• Network names

• Role names

Allow List

Amity by default prevents any link or URL from being sent. However, websites can be whitelisted so that links with that website domain can be sent.

You can enable or disable this feature.

Banning Users

There are 2 types of ban that can be performed on a user:

1. Global Ban

2. Channel Ban

Global Ban

Admins have the ability to global ban a user. When a user is globally banned, they will no longer be able to authenticate with ASC and will be forcibly removed from all their existing channels. All the globally banned user's messages will also be deleted. If the SDK has already cached the messages, they will only disappear when refreshed. Note that the global banned user's social content, such as posts, comments, and community membership, will not be removed.

The globally banned user will not be able to authenticate with Amity's network again until they have been globally unbanned.

Global-banning a user

To perform a global ban on a user:

1. In ASC Console, go to Users.

2. Select the user you wish to ban.

3. In Actions, click the ban user icon.

4. Click Confirm in the confirmation pop-up.

When a user is global-banned, it can take up to 30 seconds before the user is disconnected from the network. Global ban also does not emit channel ban event and there would be no update via Live Collection.

Global-unbanning User

To unban a user who has been globally banned:

1. In ASC Console, go to Users.

2. Select the user you wish to unban.

3. In Actions, click the unban user icon.

4. Click Confirm in the confirmation pop-up.

Channel Ban

Admins also have the ability to ban a user at the channel level. When a user is banned in a channel, unlike global ban, the user will not get disconnected but will only get an event on both user and channel level. All messages of the banned user in the specified channel will be soft deleted.

There is a real-time event telling online users in the channel that a user has been banned. Therefore, SDK can do soft delete locally and reflects the changes on to the message list right away via LiveCollection.

Channel-banning User

To perform a channel ban on a user:

1. In ASC Console, go to Channels.

2. Select the channel where the User is a member.

3. Click Members button.

4. Select the User in the channel that you wish to ban.

5. In Actions, click the ban user icon.

6. Click Confirm in the confirmation pop-up.

Channel-unbanning User

To unban a user who has been banned in the channel:

1. In ASC Console, go to Channels.

2. Select the channel where the User is a member.

3. Click Members button.

4. Select the User in the channel that you wish to ban.

5. In Actions, click the unban user icon.

6. Click Confirm in the confirmation pop-up.

General Moderation Privileges

These moderation tools are available to all admins and users with moderator and super-moderator roles

Muting and Unmuting

Moderators can mute and unmute users. When a user is muted, they cannot send messages in a channel. However, muted users will still be allowed to observe messages in a channel. The status of being muted is indefinite but is only applied at the channel level.

Banning Unbanning

Moderators can ban and unban users. When a user is banned in a channel, they are forcibly removed from the channel and may no longer participate or observe messages in that channel. All their previous messages in the channel will also be automatically deleted.

A user that has been banned from a channel can not rejoin the channel until they have been unbanned.

Moderation Level

Any frontend user of a network can be promoted into a moderator. There are two types of moderators:

1. Network Level Moderators They can moderate all posts, comments, and users in all communities across the entire network.

2. Community Level Moderators They have the same set of permissions as the Network Level Moderators but are only limited within the community wherein they are the moderator.

1. UIKit for iOS and Android supports both moderation levels so all moderators can see more menus not available to non-moderators.

2. UIKit for web supports community-level moderation only.

Moderator Permissions

Making a user an administrator allows them to:

• Create, edit, or delete roles

• Create, edit, or delete community categories

• Delete or edit communities

• Add, edit, ban, or remove community users

• Edit, review, or delete community posts

• Edit or delete community comments

• Manage posts, comments, and communities

How to promote a user to network-level moderator

To promote a user to a network-level moderator, perform these steps:

1. In ASC Console, go to Users.

2. Select the user you wish to upgrade.

3. In Actions, click the Change role icon.

4. Select Network Moderator from the user role dropdown.

How to promote a user to a community-level moderator

Promoting a user to a community-level moderator can be done via API, SDK, or by the Change User Role settings in the Console.