The fast-growing ecommerce startup Bloop has partnered with Checkstep to safeguard the user-generated content (UGC) on its new social shopping platform, ensuring Trust and Safety for users.

About Bloop

Bloop is reshaping the social shopping landscape by rewarding real consumer influence. Bloop combines the best elements of social networking and marketplace platforms. The team aims to revolutionize the shopping experience by rewarding users for posting real consumption recommendations, creating an engaging, community-driven shopping experience. How it works: consumers earn 10% credit just for posting, and 5% credit when they generate a sale. 

Bloop will launch in Portugal in early 2025, with plans to expand to Spain and France in the following years. The founders have raised a total pre-seed round of $1.3 million, making it one of the best-funded early-stage e-commerce companies in Europe.  

Bloop moderation challenges 

With the rise of GenAI, platforms have a higher risk of scams, misinformation and impersonation, with an increase in accounts created with the sole purpose of deceiving other users. Bloop’s mission is to build strong and distinct policies and processes for both its social feed and marketplace to mitigate these risks. 

Bloop’s approach to moderation will be proactive rather than reactive (i.e. waiting for users to report unwanted content). Prior to launching their platform, Bloop’s main concern is the risk of inappropriate, duplicate or misleading content spreading across both the social feed and the marketplace. They actively sought a solution that could help them develop two distinct strategies and responses for both elements of the platform in an efficient, compliant and cost-effective manner. 

To ensure the authenticity of every post (i.e. verifying real users, detecting bots or AI-generated content, and preventing reposts or copyright infringement), Bloop has chosen to partner with Checkstep. Checkstep will help Bloop develop proactive moderation strategies from the start.

Goals of our partnership 

Through this partnership, Bloop will integrate Checkstep’s AI-powered moderation tools to ensure a safe environment for its users. By moderating both the social feed and the marketplace, Checkstep provides Bloop with comprehensive protection against inappropriate or misleading content, while also ensuring compliance with the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

Checkstep’s policy-centric moderation solution allows Bloop to apply different content rules across its UGC sources, creating a tailored experience for both social interactions and marketplace transactions.

“We are excited to collaborate with Checkstep as we launch our innovative platform,” said João Neves, Bloop’s CTO to Andrew Kaptarenko, Technical Account Manager at Checkstep. “Your expertise in content moderation and compliance will help us ensure that our users can trust the content they see and share on our platform.”

Bloop’s legal counsel was particularly impressed with Checkstep’s experience with DSA compliance and the flexibility of their moderation solutions. Having previously evaluated other solutions, such as AWS Rekognition and Azure Content Moderation, Bloop found that Checkstep offered a superior end-to-end moderation suite that required fewer internal resources, allowing them to focus on platform growth and innovation. In short, Bloop can focus on building the core of their product, while having a flexible way to anticipate any risk linked to user-generated-content, including explicit content and hateful speech that can damage brands and user experiences.

Bloop’s Head of Business Development added: “As a fast-growing platform, moderation is a small part of our overall operations, but we needed a solution that minimized our resource allocation while still ensuring complete safety and compliance. Checkstep’s consultative approach was exactly what we needed, helping us navigate the complexities of Trust & Safety.”

Why Bloop chose Checkstep

• Consultative partnership: Checkstep’s team led by Andrew, worked closely with Bloop to provide guidance on Trust & Safety and DSA compliance, ensuring that the solution was customized to Bloop’s specific needs.
• Comprehensive moderation coverage: Checkstep’s end-to-end moderation suite offers seamless coverage across Bloop’s social feed and marketplace, reducing the strain on internal teams and providing users with a safe environment.
• DSA Compliance Expertise: Checkstep’s experience with companies like Shein and their deep knowledge of the DSA regulations were critical factors in Bloop’s decision to partner with them.

This partnership marks a significant milestone for Bloop as it prepares for its Q1 2025 launch, positioning the platform as a trusted, safe, and innovative space for social shopping.

About Checkstep

Checkstep is a leading AI-powered Trust & Safety platform, helping companies ensure compliance and trust in their platforms with their complete software suite. With expertise in managing user-generated content and ensuring compliance with the European Union’s Digital Services Act, Checkstep partners with companies across multiple industries to create safer online environments.

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