Content moderators can be exposed to secondary traumatic stress (brought on by continued and prolonged exposure to abusive, threatening, distressing or disturbing images and information).
To help ensure moderators are safe at work, teams must place importance on proactive support. This section places emphasis on providing sufficient staffing levels to handle demand and support moderators with downtime away from moderating.
Please note that this does not supersede the requirements outlined in your Enterprise Agreement.
It is up to each entity to identify moderation staffing levels based on the comments and possible exposure to secondary traumatic stress.
For example, a staff member moderating for 4 days in a row being exposed to abusive, threatening, distressing or disturbing content may need a period of at least 48 hours away from moderation.
Each entity must also regularly review appropriate staffing levels to deal with the level of messages, comments, replies and mentions per week. This may include support during peak periods and when advertising is running.
Entities with significant levels of messages, comments, mentions and replies could consider engaging customer service or contact centre teams within that entity if they have capability in social media management.
As outlined in the Whole of Government Social Media Moderation Policy, a Victorian Government entity should conduct its own assessment as to whether it requires a specific policy due to an increased likelihood of defamatory comments occurring on its social media posts. A tailored policy could subsequently be developed, which considers among other things, the entity’s resources which would include its staffing levels.
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