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Try Image Moderation

Stopping Spam Images on Your Platform

Image spam floods platforms with promotional content, scam imagery, and repetitive uploads that frustrate users and degrade community quality. Our AI detects spam patterns across visual content, text-in-images, and upload behavior to keep your platform clean.

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% of UGC is spam on unmoderated platforms
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% spam detection accuracy
0
% reduction in spam reports
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Detection response time

The Hidden Cost of Image Spam

Image spam might seem like a minor nuisance compared to explicit or violent content, but its impact on platforms is substantial. Studies show that spam is the number one reason users cite for leaving online communities. Every promotional post, scam listing, or repetitive upload erodes user trust and engagement.

Beyond user experience, spam creates operational costs. Support teams field complaints, moderation queues fill with repetitive reports, and engineering resources are diverted to whack-a-mole spam fighting. For marketplaces and classified sites, spam listings directly undermine trust and transaction volumes.

Modern image spam is sophisticated. Spammers use slight image variations to evade hash-based detection, embed promotional text in images to bypass text filters, and coordinate networks of fake accounts for volume attacks. Effective spam fighting requires equally sophisticated detection.

Multi-Signal Spam Detection

Our spam detection analyzes multiple signals to identify spam content even when individual signals wouldn't trigger detection:

Visual Similarity Detection

Identify near-duplicate images and variations that spammers use to evade exact-match filters. Catches resized, filtered, or slightly modified spam images.

Promotional Text Detection

OCR extracts text from images and identifies promotional language, phone numbers, URLs, and other spam indicators in 50+ languages.

Scam Pattern Recognition

Detect common scam imagery patterns: too-good-to-be-true offers, fake luxury goods, counterfeit products, and impersonation attempts.

Watermark Detection

Identify stock photo watermarks, competitor logos, and other indicators of unauthorized or spammy image usage.

QR Code Detection

Detect QR codes in images that often link to spam sites, phishing pages, or external promotional content.

Behavioral Signals

Combine image analysis with upload patterns, account age, and other signals to identify coordinated spam campaigns.

Integration Example

# Python - Detect spam images
import requests

def check_for_spam(image_url, api_key, user_context=None):
    response = requests.post(
        "https://api.imagemoderationapi.com/v1/moderate",
        headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {api_key}"},
        json={
            "image_url": image_url,
            "models": ["spam", "ocr", "qr"],
            "context": user_context  # Optional: account age, post count, etc.
        }
    )
    result = response.json()

    # Check for spam indicators
    spam_score = result["moderation_classes"]["spam"]["score"]
    has_promo_text = result.get("ocr_analysis", {}).get("promotional", False)
    has_qr = result.get("qr_detected", False)

    if spam_score > 0.9 or (spam_score > 0.7 and has_promo_text):
        return {"action": "block", "reason": "spam_detected"}

    if has_qr or spam_score > 0.5:
        return {"action": "review", "reason": "possible_spam"}

    return {"action": "allow"}

Types of Image Spam We Detect

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you avoid blocking legitimate promotional content?

Our models distinguish between spam and legitimate business content by analyzing multiple signals including image quality, text patterns, and context. Verified business accounts can have adjusted thresholds. We provide confidence scores so you can tune sensitivity for different content areas.

Can spammers easily evade your detection?

We use perceptual hashing and deep learning that catches image variations, not just exact matches. Our models detect spam patterns even when images are modified, text is repositioned, or colors are changed. We continuously update models as new spam techniques emerge.

How does behavioral context improve detection?

You can pass optional context like account age, post frequency, and profile completeness. A borderline image from a new account with rapid-fire posting patterns is more likely spam than the same image from an established user.

What about spam in marketplace listings?

We have specialized models for marketplace spam including counterfeit detection, scam listing patterns, and misleading product imagery. These models understand the specific patterns that affect classified and e-commerce platforms.

Stop Spam in Its Tracks

Keep your platform clean with AI-powered spam detection. Start your free trial today.

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