The Cook Islands Football Association has become the first Pacific islands country in our region to enhance its digital protection using the AI-powered online moderation platform Respondology.
OFC has been using the platform provided by FIFA for the past year and football’s World Governing body is making the technology accessible free to all Member Associations.
CIFA will use Respondology to moderate comments on its Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok social media accounts.
Respondology acts as a protective shield for players, coaches, officials, staff, and fans by detecting and hiding harmful or abusive comments before they cause harm and CIFA is the first MA to be onboarded, just in time for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™ Oceania Qualifiers, which they are hosting this week.
OFC is expanding coverage to include stamping out abuse in different languages.
As part of Round One of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Qualifiers, Respondology has already identified significant activity across OFC channels.
Across the tournament period so far:
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6% were automatically hidden for harmful or abusive content
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76% were posted during off-hours, where automated moderation played a critical role
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Respondology’s moderation contributed to an estimated 3 hours saved in manual review time, despite a 79–82% decrease across several categories compared with the previous week.
These early insights highlight both the volume of conversation around the qualifiers and the immediate safeguarding impact of the platform.
So how does Respondology work?
Respondology is an AI-driven social engagement platform that helps organisations protect their communities while staying connected to the conversations that matter. Their comment moderation product, Moderate, reduces online abuse in real time by automatically hiding harmful comments before they fuel negativity or trigger pile-ons. Already trusted by major global brands and sporting leagues, such as the Olympics, NASCAR, and NFL teams, Respondology supports these communities by hiding hate, harassment, discrimination, and spam on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Automatic Removal of Harmful Content: Key phrase detection helps remove the most severe, universally harmful language that requires no additional context. This keeps the most damaging forms of hate and abuse out of public view.
AI-Powered Detection and Protection: Comments are scanned as soon as they’re posted, using AI to assess context and intent so potentially harmful language can be addressed before it spreads or causes harm.
Human Review for Complex Situations: When comments require context or judgment, trained moderators review them to ensure sensitive or complex interactions are handled with care.
Insight into Community Conversations: Organisations can better understand what their communities are experiencing by analysing the themes and conversations across their channels.
Cultural and Language Adaptation: The system supports Pacific languages, slang, and cultural context by translating non-English comments in-platform, enabling more accurate moderation and a deeper understanding of diverse communities.
Moderate provides Member Associations with fast, accurate protection supported by both AI and human judgment, clear insight into community conversations, and strong coverage across Pacific languages, helping organisations create safe digital environments.
For OFC, the introduction of Respondology is not simply a technological upgrade, it is a safeguarding milestone. Digital violence can cause psychological harm and emotional distress, silence women and girls’ voices online, reduce players’ engagement with fans and communities and damage reputations of individuals and organisations.
