Analyze a video for inappropriate content. Mux samples thumbnails from the video and scores each one for sexual and violent content. You can configure the thresholds that determine whether content gets flagged. See the Moderate API referenceAPI for the full endpoint specification. See Mux Robots pricing for unit costs.

Create a moderate job

curl https://api.mux.com/robots/v0/jobs/moderate \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -X POST \
  -d '{
    "parameters": {
      "asset_id": "YOUR_ASSET_ID",
      "thresholds": {
        "sexual": 0.7,
        "violence": 0.8
      }
    }
  }' \
  -u ${MUX_TOKEN_ID}:${MUX_TOKEN_SECRET}

Parameters

Sampling behavior

By default, the workflow samples a thumbnail every 10 seconds. Use sampling_interval to override this; the minimum is 5 seconds. Smaller intervals give denser coverage at higher cost; larger intervals are cheaper but may miss brief moments of flagged content.

For example, with sampling_interval: 10, a 60-second video produces 6 samples — at 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 seconds.

If you set max_samples alongside sampling_interval, the cap takes over once the interval would produce more samples than allowed. See the parameter descriptions above.

Output

The outputs object is included in the job once its status is completed. You'll receive it on the robots.job.moderate.completed webhook (recommended), or you can fetch it with GET /robots/v0/jobs/moderate/{JOB_ID}. It contains:

Example response

This is the payload delivered to the robots.job.moderate.completed webhook, and the same shape you get from GET /robots/v0/jobs/moderate/{JOB_ID}:

{
  "data": {
    "id": "rjob_def456",
    "workflow": "moderate",
    "status": "completed",
    "units_consumed": 1,
    "parameters": {
      "asset_id": "YOUR_ASSET_ID",
      "thresholds": {
        "sexual": 0.7,
        "violence": 0.8
      }
    },
    "outputs": {
      "thumbnail_scores": [
        { "time": 0.0, "sexual": 0.01, "violence": 0.02 },
        { "time": 5.0, "sexual": 0.03, "violence": 0.05 }
      ],
      "max_scores": {
        "sexual": 0.03,
        "violence": 0.05
      },
      "exceeds_threshold": false
    }
  }
}

Example: strict moderation

If content safety is critical for your platform, lower the thresholds and increase the sample density:

{
  "parameters": {
    "asset_id": "YOUR_ASSET_ID",
    "thresholds": {
      "sexual": 0.3,
      "violence": 0.4
    },
    "max_samples": 50
  }
}

With lower thresholds, even mildly suggestive or mildly violent content will cause exceeds_threshold to return true, giving you a signal to flag the video for human review before publishing.

Take action on flagged content

By default, a moderate job only reports scores — it never changes your asset. Set on_flagged to have the workflow act automatically when exceeds_threshold is true:

{
  "parameters": {
    "asset_id": "YOUR_ASSET_ID",
    "thresholds": {
      "sexual": 0.3,
      "violence": 0.4
    },
    "on_flagged": {
      "action": "delete_playback_ids"
    }
  }
}

When the content exceeds a threshold, delete_playback_ids removes every playback ID on the asset, making it immediately unplayable while preserving the underlying master asset so you can review it and re-publish later by creating a new playback ID.

The action is best-effort and non-fatal: if a deletion fails, the job still completes with its moderation scores rather than erroring. The outcome is reported back in the job output as flagged_action:

{
  "outputs": {
    "max_scores": {
      "sexual": 0.82,
      "violence": 0.10
    },
    "exceeds_threshold": true,
    "flagged_action": {
      "action": "delete_playback_ids",
      "deleted_playback_ids": ["abc123...", "def456..."]
    }
  }
}