Escalation Queue

Overview

The Escalation Queue gives your moderation team a structured way to handle edge cases and ambiguous content that requires senior review. When a moderator encounters content they are unsure how to act on — whether due to policy ambiguity, high-profile accounts, legal risk, or any other reason — they can escalate it instead of guessing. An admin or senior moderator then reviews escalated items in a dedicated queue with full context about why the item was escalated.

This is particularly valuable for teams where:

• Third-party or outsourced moderators handle high-volume routine cases but lack the context or authority to make judgment calls on sensitive content.
• Multiple review tiers exist — for example, a first-level team that triages and a second-level team that handles complex cases.
• Compliance or legal teams need to review specific categories of content before any action is taken.

How It Works

The escalation queue is not a separate system — it is the standard content queue filtered to show only items that have been escalated. This means escalated items go through the same enrichment, context modals, and action pipeline as regular queue items.

graph TD
    A[Moderator opens flagged item] --> B{Knows what to do?}
    B -->|Yes| C[Take action: Approve / Delete / Ban]
    B -->|No| D[Click Escalate]
    D --> E[Fill in reason, priority, notes]
    E --> F[Item moves to Escalation Queue]
    F --> G[Admin reviews escalated item]
    G --> H[Admin takes action: Ban / Delete / Approve]
    H --> I[Item moves to Reviewed tab]

Enabling Escalation

Escalation is enabled per application by an admin in the dashboard:

1. Go to Moderation → Settings → Preferences.
2. Toggle on Enable Escalation Queue.
3. Save your settings.

Once enabled, you will see an Escalations link in the sidebar under the Moderation section.

Configuring Escalation Reasons

Before moderators can start escalating items, you should configure escalation reasons for your application. Reasons help admins understand the nature of an escalation at a glance and allow filtering by reason in the escalation queue.

To configure reasons:

1. Go to Moderation → Settings → Preferences.
2. Scroll to the Escalation section.
3. Add the reasons that make sense for your platform (for example: "Policy ambiguity", "Legal / CSAM risk", "High-profile account", "Repeat offender").

You can configure as many or as few reasons as you need. Reasons are optional — if none are configured, moderators can still escalate using only priority and notes.

Escalating an Item (Moderator Flow)

Any moderator with the chat_moderator privilege can escalate items from the content queue.

Steps

1. Open the Text, Media, or Users queue.
2. Click on a flagged item to open the context modal.
3. Click the Escalate button in the action bar.

4. In the escalation form:
   • Reason(required if reasons are configured): Select the reason that best fits from the list configured by your admin (for example: "Policy ambiguity", "Legal / CSAM risk"). If no reasons have been configured, this field is not shown.
   • Priority(optional): Select Low, Medium, or High. Defaults to Medium.
   • Additional Notes(optional): Free-text field for extra context the admin should know. For example: "User has 50K followers and this could go viral."

5. Click Submit. The item is marked as escalated and disappears from the regular queue inbox. It is now visible in the Escalation Queue.

:::note Escalating an item does not delete, block, or otherwise modify the content. It simply marks the item for senior review. The content remains in its current state until an admin takes action. :::

Reviewing the Escalation Queue (Admin Flow)

Admins and senior moderators with the moderation_escalation_review privilege can access the escalation queue.

Accessing the Queue

Navigate to Moderation → Escalations in the sidebar. You will see a table of all escalated items awaiting review.

Escalation Queue Columns

Reviewing an Item

Click on any row to open the context modal. At the top of the modal you will see the escalation header — a summary of why this item was escalated:

• Who escalated it and when
• Priority and reason
• Any additional notes left by the moderator

Scroll down to see the full content, flags, harm labels, and moderation history — the same information available in the regular content queue.

Taking Action

Admins have the full set of moderation actions available:

:::note The available actions are configurable per queue. Contact support if you need different action sets for the escalation queue vs the regular content queue. :::

After you take any action, the item moves to the Reviewed tab of the escalation queue.

Inbox and Reviewed Tabs

Like the regular content queue, the escalation queue has two tabs:

• Inbox: Escalated items awaiting admin review (escalated = true, not yet reviewed).
• Reviewed: Items where an admin has already taken action (escalated = true, reviewed).

Filtering the Escalation Queue

The escalation queue supports the following filters in addition to standard content filters:

Permissions

Default role assignments:

Moderators can escalate items but cannot view the escalation queue (they are not the intended reviewers). Admins can both escalate and review. You can adjust these defaults per team member in Settings → Members.

Webhook Events

Escalation actions fire the standard review_queue_item.updated event — there are no separate escalation-specific events. The event payload includes the full review queue item, which will contain the escalation fields (escalated_by, escalated_at, escalation_metadata) when the item has been escalated.

{
  "type": "review_queue_item.updated",
  "review_queue_item": {
    "id": "...",
    "entity_type": "stream:chat:v1:message",
    "entity_id": "...",
    "escalated_by": "moderator-user-id",
    "escalated_at": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z",
    "escalation_metadata": {
      "reason": "POSSIBLE_SCAM",
      "notes": "User has 50K followers, content could go viral",
      "priority": "high"
    }
  }
}

When an admin later resolves the item (ban, delete, mark reviewed, etc.), a second review_queue_item.updated fires with reviewed_at and latest_moderator_action set.

You can use these events to notify your team — for example, sending a Slack message when a high-priority item is escalated, or computing resolution times from escalated_at → reviewed_at.

Common Patterns

Priority Triage

Use priority levels to manage your escalation queue efficiently:

• High: Needs same-day review (e.g., potential legal risk, CSAM-adjacent content, high-profile accounts).
• Medium: Review within 24 hours (e.g., policy ambiguity, repeat offenders).
• Low: Review when capacity allows (e.g., edge cases the team wants visibility on).

Your team can filter the inbox by priority to ensure the most urgent items are reviewed first.

Escalation Reasons as Audit Trail

Every escalation captures who escalated the item, when, and why. This creates a permanent audit trail for sensitive moderation decisions. You can access this history in the Reviewed tab of the escalation queue.