How Startups Should Structure Content Moderation Into 7 Risk Categories

A technical framework recommends that startup apps organize content moderation into seven risk categories: harassment, sexual content, self-harm, violence, illegal activity, spam, and PII. Each category alone should not determine an outcome; instead, decisions must factor in severity, confidence, and the intended system action. The design proposes a two-lane pipeline, where high-risk checks like self-harm and credible violence run synchronously to block harmful actions before they execute, while lower-risk quality issues are handled asynchronously. A key principle is that category labels describe content, but policy governs what action follows, since identical flagged content can warrant different responses depending on context and destination. The framework also cautions against over-engineering, advising teams to maintain a single policy object and decision function rather than building multiple unrelated filters.