General

1. My company has never had a problem, why should I use CleanSpeak now instead of waiting until we see issues?

We have helped numerous customers recover after an incident occurred. In some cases, these incidents resulted in lawsuits and the loss of customers. Rather than waiting until something happens, it is better to proactively protect your brand.

2. What type of content can CleanSpeak handle?

CleanSpeak can filter text, images and videos. CleanSpeak can also moderate and manage audio, but currently cannot filter audio.

3. What are the primary uses of CleanSpeak?

CleanSpeak helps companies filter and moderate users and the content they create. It is used in forums, games, chat systems, profile pictures, descriptions, product reviews, commenting systems and many other types of user generated content.

4. Why should I use CleanSpeak instead of building my own filter?

Building a filter requires extensive knowledge of natural language processing and language rules. Without a filter that understands language, you will either have too many false positives or too many misses. We have been working on our filtering technology for 9 years and continue to improve on it each year.

Additionally, we have worked closely with some of the world’s largest companies who have strict quality requirements to ensure that CleanSpeak is the best filter on the market. You should ensure that any filter you choose has been thoroughly vetted and has had enough R&D investment to confirm it works properly.

5. Can I use the CleanSpeak to monitor my social media pages?

Although it is possible to integrate CleanSpeak with any system, CleanSpeak does not currently provide social media moderation and filtering out of the box. We are investigating adding this feature to CleanSpeak. If you would like this feature, please Contact sales and let us know.

Integration/API

1. What type of API does CleanSpeak provide?

CleanSpeak provides a RESTful API that takes and returns JSON over HTTP. You can access the CleanSpeak API from virtually any language.

2. How long does a typical integration take?

This depends on your experience integrating REST APIs and which features of CleanSpeak you need. In general, CleanSpeak integration usually takes a day or two to get everything written, tested and working. If you need more complicated integrations that include discipline, content editing and approvals, this adds a bit more development time.

3. Do you offer integration support or services?

Yes. Our professional services and support teams can help you during installation and integration. If you need assistance or have questions, simply email support@cleanspeak.com and we will assist you. You can also Contact sales to discuss our professional services in more detail.

Deployment and Installation

1. Is CleanSpeak hosted or on-premise?

Either one. We can host CleanSpeak for you in our private cloud or you can install CleanSpeak on your own hardware. If you choose to deploy in our private cloud, your data will still be completely isolated from other customers and your servers will be secured and monitored by our security team.

2. What operating systems does CleanSpeak run on?

CleanSpeak will run on any platform that supports Java, including Unix, Linux, OSX, BSD and Windows. Native packages are provided for Debian and Redhat based Linux platforms and zip packages are provided for all other platforms.

3. Do you have AMIs for CleanSpeak?

We will have AMIs available for CleanSpeak in the coming months. Contact our sales team sales@cleanspeak.com if you need help installing in Amazon’s EC2 before they are available.

4. Do you have Docker images for CleanSpeak?

We will have Docker images available for CleanSpeak in the coming months. Contact our sales team sales@cleanspeak.com if you need help installing CleanSpeak before they are available.

5. How long does it take to install CleanSpeak?

CleanSpeak can be installed in a matter of minutes. Installation can be completed using any of our bundles including RPMs, DEBs, and ZIPs.

CleanSpeak also includes a simple installation wizard to help you get up and running quickly. Just provide the information for your database and license ID and CleanSpeak will be ready to go in seconds.

6. Why is CleanSpeak on-premise (or private hosted) rather than a multi-tenant solution?

In order to ensure that Personally Identifiable Information is secure each CleanSpeak deployment is isolated. This helps companies maintain strict compliance with COPPA and the EU Data Privacy Directive.

We offer hosting solutions if you prefer not to install and manage CleanSpeak yourself. Even hosted versions of CleanSpeak are designed to ensure that each customer’s data is isolated from others.

CleanSpeak is the only solution available that can provide this level of security.

Scaling

1. What volume of content can CleanSpeak handle?

CleanSpeak is highly scalable. You can filter tens of thousands (10,000+) messages per second on a single server. When moderating content and users, CleanSpeak must be tuned to ensure a high level of performance as the volume of data in the database continues to grow. We can help you deploy and tune your CleanSpeak installation to ensure it will scale for your needs.  Please contact us at sales@cleanspeak.com and we can discuss the best solution for you.

2. Does CleanSpeak handle multiple applications?

Yes. CleanSpeak is a capable of managing users and content across multiple applications. You can setup different filtering and moderation rules for each application. You can also isolate your moderators so that they can only moderate content and users for specific applications.

Filter Features

1. Can CleanSpeak filter profanity from Netflix, DVDs and other movie services?

No. CleanSpeak is a software tool used by businesses to filter and moderate their websites, games, forums, and other applications. If you are looking for a DVD solution, visit http://www.tvguardian.com

2. What languages does CleanSpeak filter profanity in?

CleanSpeak can filter in 18 languages including: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Danish, Arabic, Finnish, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean.

3. Does CleanSpeak automatically filter images and video?

Yes. We have integrated with SightEngine's API to provide advanced filtering of pornographic, violence and other inappropriate images. You can either sign up for a SightEngine account directly or work with CleanSpeak's sales team to get a single bill each month that includes everything. Contact sales to discuss your image filtering needs.

4. Can I configure rules in CleanSpeak that determine what happens when someone says the f-word? Or when they say a much less offensive word?

Absolutely. CleanSpeak has a robust filtering rule configuration system. You can tune all aspects of the CleanSpeak filter and control exactly what happens when users say different types of words and different rankings of words (in terms of how offensive they are).

Moderation Features

1. Does CleanSpeak track user trust or reputation?

Yes. CleanSpeak tracks users over time to determine if they are a positive or negative user. Moderators can adjust user reputation scores manually if they feel CleanSpeak made an error. Additionally, you can configure and tune the user reputation and trust systems in CleanSpeak to meet your exact needs.

2. Can I use CleanSpeak to approve/reject text before it is visible in my application?

Yes. CleanSpeak provides a pre-approval queue that allows moderators to pre-screen content before it is visible to other users. This ensures that all content visible in your application is safe and clean.

3. Can I use CleanSpeak to approve/reject images and videos before they are visible in my application?

Yes. CleanSpeak now has the world’s fastest image approval system available. We worked closely with industry experts to build a system that allows moderators to approve huge volumes of images quickly. We also studied eye strain and other environmental stress factors and incorporated our findings into our image approval queue to provide the best moderation experience possible.

Additionally, we have integrated SightEngine's powerful image filtering API into CleanSpeak. This technology will classify images into categories, thus automating the process and minimizing manual requirements. Moderation costs will be further reduced and efficiency maximized.

4. Can CleanSpeak tell me when users are misbehaving?

Yes. CleanSpeak tracks user activity and can generate alerts when users are not following the rules or are creating inappropriate content. If you have a “report this user” button or plan to implement this type of feature, you can use CleanSpeak to manage these user reports.

5. Can I discipline users from CleanSpeak?

Definitely. CleanSpeak provides a customizable discipline and rewarding system called User Actions. You can create custom User Actions and apply them to any user in seconds. CleanSpeak sends events to your applications when User Actions are profane, allowing you to handle them however you need.

6. Right now I have to log into 4 different backends to lock a user’s account, how does CleanSpeak make my life easier?

With CleanSpeak, you can create a custom User Action that is used to lock accounts. When a moderator or admin locks a user’s account from CleanSpeak, an event can be sent to each of your 4 different backends. Those backends can automatically lock the user’s account when they receive the event.

7. Can I lock a user’s account for a week? And do I have to remember to unlock it?

CleanSpeak User Actions can be time-based. You specify a duration when actioning a user and CleanSpeak will automatically handle the start and end of the action. For example, CleanSpeak will lock the user’s account at the beginning and then unlock it a week later.

8. Can CleanSpeak automatically discipline users based on their reputation?

Absolutely. You can configure CleanSpeak to automatically take a User Action (discipline) on a user after their reputation/trust score reaches a certain threshold. You can use progressive disciplines at different levels to manage repeat offenders as well.

9. Can my moderators escalate issues to their managers?

Yes. Each moderation queue in CleanSpeak provides a mechanism for moderators to escalate issues to managers. They can also provide a comment about why they are escalating the issue to help the manager respond quickly.

10. Can I view a conversation between 2 or more users?

Yes. CleanSpeak provides a simple way to look at conversations between users. We call this Context View (or sometimes Threaded View). You can also change the time range for the conversation depending on the length and type of conversation you are viewing.

Compliance

1. Is CleanSpeak COPPA compliant?

Yes. Since CleanSpeak is able to be installed on-premise, it is not considered a 3rd party solution. Therefore, as long as any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) you collect from children under 13 complies with COPPA, storing that data in CleanSpeak will ensure you remain fully COPPA compliant.

2. Is CleanSpeak compliant with the EU Data Protection Directive?

Yes. Since CleanSpeak is able to be installed on-premise, it is not considered a 3rd party solution. Therefore, as long as any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) you collect from complies with all EU rules, storing that data in CleanSpeak will ensure you remain fully compliant.

3. Our InfoSec rules say that we can’t send Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to 3rd parties, can I still use CleanSpeak?

Yes. Since CleanSpeak is able to be installed on-premise, it is not considered a 3rd party solution. Therefore, you can store any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) inside CleanSpeak and still comply with your InfoSec rules.