Thanks for doing this, I do have some personal experience to share.
I was once a core moderator of a online community with approx. 10k members, at times there were heated debate, and of course there are plenty of misinformation, false claims, defamation, etc.
I don’t usually remove posts / threads as it doesn’t resolve conflicts, nor helping with busting myths. What I do was
- Slow mode for heated debate where people were seemingly losing self-control.
- Mediate and facilitate discussions, also to deescalate by asking relevant parties to chill out, help clarifying things to avoid miscommunications / misunderstanding, etc.
- For people persistently acting bad baith (such as refuse to become civil, persistently abusive, continue to intentionally spread blatantly wrong information) , I would firstly warn, then warn + temporary mute, and then lastly ban. Each warn expires after certain period of time. Each moderation action was clearly logged with reasons quoting applicable group rules. The log can be inspected by anyone at anytime, by themselves.
- For blatantly wrong information, I would request OP to clarify or remove, if they refuse, I would then clarify and then lock the thread.
- There was appeal mechanism in place, where they could raise a thread, the moderator which took the initial decision needs to justify their action, and they are not allowed to vote in the appeal.
I remove contents if and only if
- Contains links or files that is malicious for illegal.
- Contains sensitive personal information without explicit consent from relevant persons.
- Spams / scams (more or less equals to 1. but with subtle difference)
- At OP’s request.
- Received multiple reports and found the content could cause actual harm to personal safety.
I do find the above measures are quite effective in both moderation and community education perspective.
Just my 2 cents. Sorry it gets longer than I was expected.