7 Ways Startup Apps Define Moderation Categories (Harassment to PII)

Short answer: define moderation categories for a startup app as seven risk checks, but do not let a category decide the outcome by itself; combine harassment, sexual content, self-harm, violence, illegal activity, spam, and PII with severity, confidence, and the proposed CRM action. # Check Default action for a sales-call summary Latency budget 1 Harassment Remove quoted abuse from routine notes; preserve a restricted review record Fast path unless targeted or threatening 2 Sexual content Block explicit detail from general CRM fields Review when context is ambiguous 3 Self-harm Stop automated follow-up and escalate Immediate synchronous decision 4 Violence Stop automation when intent or a credible threat is present Immediate synchronous decision 5 Illegal activity Hold actions that could facilitate wrongdoing Review before any write 6 Spam Suppress repetitive outreach and low-value records Fast path 7 PII Redact unnecessary identifiers before persistence Fast path, with review for uncertain spans The least complex useful design is a two-lane pipeline: synchronous checks for content that can make an automated CRM action dangerous, and deferred checks for quality issues that can wait. The recommendation is deliberately boring. Keep one typed policy object, one decision function, and one audit event. Don't build seven unrelated filters. 1. How should a startup app define moderation categories before CRM actions? A taxonomy should produce an operational decision, not merely a label. For this marketplace, the input is a transcript or summary of a sales call and the output may create a task, update an account, or draft follow-up text. A category such as violence says what appeared in the content. It does not say whether the system should redact a phrase, prevent a write, ask for review, or allow the summary unchanged. That distinction matters because the same words can lead to different actions. A seller saying, “Our game contains fantasy violence,” is ordinary product co