Game chat moderation

Live events are governed by their own rules, one of which is that they can sometimes take an unexpected turn. In a live game, for example, the level of stress and the number of participants watching the stream can spiral out of control.

This is when a chat moderator can jump in with their keen eye for detail and quick reflexes.

By the end of this document, you will understand how PubNub's Channel Monitor (an integral part of BizOps Workspace) can help you successfully moderate a live chat by editing, deleting, or highlighting inappropriate chat messages.

How PubNub helps

Role in the solution	PubNub feature (click to learn more!)
View and monitor messages in real-time Delete inappropriate content Monitor specific words using word lists Highlight potentially problematic messages	Channel Monitor

Use case overview

The Live Events demo demonstrates real-time fan engagement through active participation in chat conversations.

While the Live Events demo focuses on the fan experience, this documentation describes how Channel Monitor can be implemented to moderate chat content by monitoring, editing, and deleting inappropriate messages.

In a production implementation, moderators would access Channel Monitor through BizOps Workspace, select the Game Chat channel where real-time conversations take place, and use comprehensive message moderation controls to edit, delete, or highlight problematic content.

Guided demo

To see these message moderation capabilities in action, contact sales for a guided demo of the complete Channel Monitor functionality that will be described in this document.

Edit messages

Let's discuss a situation when one of the game fans posts a message you consider inappropriate.

Through Channel Monitor, an admin can edit the message content using the "pencil" icon next to the message, update its content in the input field, and resend it in a modified form to the channel.

The Live Events demo implements message editing using PubNub's Chat SDK. When an admin edits a message, all users receive the updated message immediately through the Message.streamUpdatesOn() feature. This same mechanism also handles other updates like message reactions, ensuring all participants see the same content in real-time.

Delete & restore messages

You can also decide that the inappropriate message must be immediately removed from the channel.

You can always bring it back to the channel through the Restore option.

The Live Events demo displays deleted messages to users with the text This message has been deleted while maintaining the message in its original position in the conversation. This approach preserves the conversation flow while clearly indicating moderated content.

The implementation uses a simple conditional check in the message rendering logic:

<div>
  {message.deleted
    ? 'This message has been deleted'
    : message.getMessageElements().map(renderMessagePart)}
</div>

Track keywords

Being on the lookout for inappropriate content can be difficult in the flood of messages published during a live event.

Using the word list functionality in Channel Monitor, an admin can make this task easier. You can create a list of words to monitor.

If someone publishes a message containing a word from the list, the admin will see this word highlighted and can react more easily to such messages.