Message Moderation

Stream Chat can moderate messages before they are delivered (bounce) and lets users report messages to moderators (flag). This page shows how to customize the XML UI Components for moderated messages. For how moderated messages are represented in the SDK, see the Moderation guide.

Bounced Messages

A bounced message renders as a normal message item: MessageListItemViewTypeMapper excludes bounces from the error message view type. Only the long click path differs. MessageListView recognises the message through isModerationError and calls showModeratedMessageDialog(message), which presents a dialog with the Send anyway, Edit message and Delete message options.

Selecting an option does not perform the action by itself. MessageListView forwards it to the ModeratedMessageOptionHandler you set with setModeratedMessageHandler. If you use ChannelFragment, the handler is already wired for you. When you build your own screen, set it yourself:

messageListView.setModeratedMessageHandler { message, option ->
    when (option) {
        SendAnyway -> messageListViewModel.onEvent(MessageListViewModel.Event.RetryMessage(message))
        EditMessage -> messageComposerViewModel.performMessageAction(Edit(message))
        DeleteMessage -> messageListViewModel.onEvent(MessageListViewModel.Event.DeleteMessage(message))
        else -> Unit
    }
}

Replacing the Dialog

The dialog itself is internal to the SDK and its option list is fixed, so you cannot subclass it or add options to it. To use your own UI, replace the long click behaviour with setOnModeratedMessageLongClickListener and return true to signal that you handled the click:

messageListView.setOnModeratedMessageLongClickListener { message ->
    MaterialAlertDialogBuilder(requireContext())
        .setTitle("Message not sent")
        .setMessage("This message goes against our community guidelines.")
        .setPositiveButton("Edit message") { _, _ ->
            messageComposerViewModel.performMessageAction(Edit(message))
        }
        .setNegativeButton("Delete message") { _, _ ->
            messageListViewModel.onEvent(MessageListViewModel.Event.DeleteMessage(message))
        }
        .setNeutralButton("Cancel", null)
        .show()
    true
}

The return value tells MessageListView whether the long click was consumed. Passing null instead of a listener removes the moderation handling entirely, so long pressing a bounced message does nothing.

Flag Action

The Flag Message action is added to the message options overlay for messages from other users, when the user has the flag-message channel capability.

Whether a confirmation dialog appears first depends on streamUiFlagMessageConfirmationEnabled. It is false on a bare MessageListView, but the layout behind ChannelFragment sets it to true, so screens built on the fragment confirm by default.

To hide the action, disable it in your MessageListView style:

<io.getstream.chat.android.ui.feature.messages.list.MessageListView
    android:id="@+id/messageListView"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    app:streamUiFlagMessageEnabled="false" />

To flag with a reason, set a MessageFlagHandler. Route it through the view model rather than calling ChatClient.flagMessage directly, so the result still reaches handleFlagMessageResult and the error feedback keeps working:

messageListView.setMessageFlagHandler { message ->
    messageListViewModel.onEvent(
        MessageListViewModel.Event.FlagMessage(
            message = message,
            reason = "inappropriate",
            customData = emptyMap(),
            resultHandler = messageListView::handleFlagMessageResult,
        ),
    )
}

Two more handlers let you customize the surrounding flow without replacing the flag call itself:

• setConfirmFlagMessageHandler replaces the confirmation dialog. Invoke the confirmCallback to proceed with flagging. It only runs when streamUiFlagMessageConfirmationEnabled is true.
• setFlagMessageResultHandler receives the Result<Flag> of the flag call, so you can show your own success or error feedback.

messageListView.setConfirmFlagMessageHandler { message, confirmCallback ->
    MaterialAlertDialogBuilder(requireContext())
        .setTitle("Report message?")
        .setMessage("Our moderators will review this message.")
        .setPositiveButton("Report") { _, _ -> confirmCallback() }
        .setNegativeButton("Cancel", null)
        .show()
}

For more details about message options, see MessageListView.

Changing the Texts

If you only need to change the texts, you don't have to set any handler. Redefine the following keys in your app's strings.xml:

See the localization guide for more details.