Set up content moderation for Chat

Supported editions for this feature: Enterprise Plus; Education Standard and Education Plus.  Compare your edition

With content reporting for Google Chat, users in your organization can report messages that violate your organization’s guidelines. Once a report is made, super admins and admins with the moderator role can take action on the report in the Workspace Moderation Tool. Reports can only be viewed by your organization’s admins, not Google.

Reports in the Moderation Tool appear under the Chat tab. You can learn more about the content of Moderation Tool reports in Find reports in the Moderation Tool.

Users cannot report

• Messages if Chat history is off
• 1:1 direct messages with external users
• Group conversations and spaces owned by external users

Note: Group conversations with external users made before December 2020 can't be reported on due to changes made to Google Chat group conversations and classic Hangouts. For more information read this blog post.

Moderation Tool roles

• Administrator—A Google administrator with access to the admin control panel, who can turn on content reporting, manage report categories and conversation types, moderate reported messages, and give other users the ability to moderate reported content.

• Moderator—A moderator has access to the admin control panel, and can moderate reported messages. This is different from a space manager, who can moderate content in a space, but may not have the Moderate Chat content report privilege.

1. Set up content reporting

Before you begin: To apply the setting for certain users, put their accounts in an organizational unit.

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AppsGoogle WorkspaceGoogle Chat.
3. Click Content reporting.
4. To apply the setting to everyone, leave the top organizational unit selected. Otherwise, select a child organizational unit.
5. Click Content reporting.
6. Check the Allow users to report content in Chat box.
7. For Conversation types, check the boxes next to the conversation types that you want users to make reports on.
8. For Reporting categories, check the boxes next to the categories that you want to let users choose.
9. (Optional) To customize the form, check the Customize title and description box and enter a title and description. Click Insert link to include a file with the description, such as your organization’s code of conduct. If you don’t customize, users get a default title and description.
10. Click Save. If you configured a child organizational unit, you might be able to Inherit or Override a parent organizational unit's settings.

Once content reporting is complete, you should create moderators who can take action on reports.

2. (Optional) Create a Moderation Tool moderator role

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AccountAdmin roles.
3. Click Create new role.
4. Enter a name, we suggest, “Chat Moderation Role”. You can optionally include a description for the role. When you’re done, click Continue.
5. In the Google Chat section check Moderate Chat content report.
6. (Optional) Select any other privileges you want your Moderation Tool moderators to have. A full list of privileges can be found at Administrator privilege definitions.
7. Click Continue.
8. Review the privileges and click Create Role.

You can then assign this role to users who will be able to take action on reports made in the Moderation Tool. To learn more, read Assign specific admin roles.

If you use the Security Investigation Tool, or want to set up a team of auditors to monitor reporting activity or other security events in your organization, we recommend you create an auditor role.

Related topics

• Moderate Chat and Gmail messages
• Find reports in the Moderation Tool
• Take action on reported Chat content