Background
Vodafone in Australia was one of the first Vodafone networks to deploy a Mobile Community, Chat service on Vodafone Live!, when it launched Laterals’ OZChat in 2003. OZChat was a WAP extension to the highly successful TXTChat service, that had been launched in 2000. A number of other mobile operators, New Zealand and Canada also connected to the service.

The moderation service:
Over time concerns developed over the possibility for inappropriate behaviour, in chat rooms and instant messaging. In particular concerns were raised that paedophiles may use these services as a vehicle to groom children. During 2004 there was considerable media attention about the possibility of this occurring. In November 2004 Vodafone and Lateral voluntarily chose to implement 24/7 human moderation. As well as OZChat Lateral chose to implement 24/7 moderation on all services in all countries. The moderation facility is possibly the most sophisticated of its’ type in the world.

The redeployment of OzChat
In September 2005 Vodafone Australia chose to move to a pre-moderated platform, plus a Chat service with a parental lock, which would create an even greater assurance of safety. Vodafone sought bids from service providers world-wide and carried out evaluation of capability over a period of six months.

Lateral was the successful bidder. The primary reason for this success was the flexibility of the Lateral platform and it’s ability to easily meet the very stringent requirements of Vodafone.

The Lateral Mobile Social Network Community platform
The key strength of the Lateral platform is its’ fundamental design, the result of seven years of development experience and several major re-engineering projects.

The Lateral Platform is not simple a Chat service, but is a highly flexible development platform for building advanced mobile (and non-mobile) Social Networks and Communities. It has been embraced by a number of mobile operators as it gives them the freedom to design and deploy their own services, rather than simply connecting to a third party, but still allows users to communicate with users across all networks.

The Result:
The Vodafone Live! OZChat service was developed by Lateral over a period of three months, to very precise specifications, and tight schedule. The system, deployed in November 2006 allows users to communicate via mobile browser or by SMS. The SMS component is also embedded on the Vodafone SIM cards.

The service has been a success in terms of user acquisitions (over 1,000) per day, robustness of operation, usage and users safety.

Elements of the VLIve! OzChat User Safety strategy:

Pre-moderated services
If the age of the user cannot be verified, the OZchat service reverts to a pre-moderated state.

1. OZChat allows users to communicate via SMS or mobile browser (WAP).
2. Each message (WAP or SMS) is intercepted by the pre-moderation system and is quarantined until moderated.
3. As part of the interception process the system evaluates the users’ past history.
4. Messages are filtered through two tiers of human moderation:
   Tier one is a high volume, human moderation, process where messages are
   either released or escalated.
5. The tier two moderators review all escalated messages and act appropriately.
6. The actions include blocking, warning and banning.
7. If a user has a poor safety record the system automatically escalates the message to the second tier.
8. Each user is colour coded in the moderation interface, green, amber, red to identify risk levels.
9. The complete transcripts of all user communications are stored against each user and can be retrieved on-line immediately. If a query is raised about a user all their communications for at least one month can be viewed on-line by the moderators.
10. The users in the system can block other users. The block is applied to the mobile number, so the offending user cannot retry under another identity.
    The users in the system can report inappropriate behaviour to the moderators.
11. Users can ‘rate’ other users, using a star system, which helps the users spot problem users.
12. The system has a number of auto-filters. These include auto-filters to pick up numeric character strings or other attempts to send phone numbers, and also filters offensive words.
    

Attached is the reference from Vodafone Australia.

Age verified services

In the case that the user’s age is verified to be 18+ the system reverts to a post-moderated state. The moderation rules are changed, but much of the system surveillance remains.

1. Each message (WAP or SMS) is read by a combination of robotic and human moderation systems. Messages are not stopped by these systems but problem users are identified and dealt with by moderators. The moderation standards are considerably relaxed as the users are all adults.
2. Age verification allows the introduction of photo profiles, and much more user generated content.

The primary reason for this success was the flexibility of the Lateral platform and it's ability to easily meet the very stringent requirements of Vodafone.