Modtools.io is COSL’s project to develop a suite of open source trust and safety tools that uphold safety and liberty as equal values, in alignment with our unique mission. Although originally developed to directly serve the needs of our own community projects such as Fan Refuge, some of our tools such as Dead Dove are also used by third parties across the web.
Compared with some of COSL’s other projects such as Drawing the Line and Liberato, it’s fair to say that Modtools.io remains at an early stage of development, and has plenty of room to grow. With that said, here are the tools that we’re currently developing, and information on how you can support our work.
Name: Modtools
Dates: January 2015 - Current
Description: A suite of past, prevent, and upcoming open source trust and safety tools and services
Contact: Mark Jimon
Contact Details: mark@liberato.io
Website: https://modtools.io/
Type: Sponsored Project
Priority Area: Safer Hosting
Dead Dove: Content Warnings That Actually Work
Content warnings are often treated as an afterthought—but done well, they’re one of the most effective tools for user agency.
Dead Dove is a WordPress plugin that uses a tag-based system to blur or gate content until users choose to view it, while providing clear, customizable warnings. Communities can define their own boundaries and give users meaningful control over what they engage with.
At its core, it operationalizes a simple principle: informed consent for content consumption, rather than blanket censorship based on presumptions about what users wish to see.
Creator Tips: Supporting Sustainable Communities
Another important component of the health of content-sharing creative communities is the ability to monetise. But too often, introducing central payments onto a platform results in it being forced to disallow whole categories of content based on the whim of the payment company.
Creator Tips enables WordPress communities to support creators directly through integrated tipping functionality. By avoiding centralisation of payments, it helps avoids giving payment processors power over the platform.
Healthy communities require both governance and sustainability. This tool addresses the latter.
RocketchatCSAM: Targeted Protection Against Serious Harm
Some harms require more than community judgment—they require automated safeguards.
RocketchatCSAM integrates scanning capabilities into Rocket.Chat environments to detect and flag known harmful material, assisting moderators in rapid response and reducing exposure to the most serious categories of abuse. Unlike other CSAM scanning tools, it does not speculate by reporting AI-classified artistic works.
RocketchatCSAM has been in continuous use on projects that now fall under COSL’s umbrella since the software was first developed in 2020. Upholding our dual values of safety and liberty, its goal is not blanket censorship, but targeted intervention where harm is clear and urgent.
WordPressCheckStep: Smarter Moderation Workflows
Moderation at scale is as much an operational challenge as a policy one. Currently under development, WordPressCheckStep integrates external moderation services (currently CheckStep) into WordPress, streamlining review queues and centralizing decision-making. It reduces friction for moderators and makes it easier to implement consistent workflows.
For the future roadmap of WordPressCheckStep, we plan to integrate support for the open source moderation platform Coop. Coop, maintained by Roost Tools, is the spiritual successor to a previous moderation dashboard Modtools:Image developed by COSL, which we discontinued once the more mature Coop was released as open source.
CLAVICLE: Compliance Without Guesswork
Our most exciting upcoming project is CLAVICLE, an age verification compliance web service.
As regulation of online content accelerates—particularly around age verification—platforms are increasingly faced with a different kind of moderation problem: not what should be allowed, but what is legally permitted to be shown in a given place. CLAVICLE addresses this directly.
It is an API that determines, in real time, whether content can be offered without age verification in a user’s jurisdiction. By providing an IP address and a content category code, platforms receive a clear, actionable compliance answer.
A free tier will make the tool accessible to smaller users, while paid subscriptions support scaling needs. CLAVICLE will be integrated into a future version of our own Dead Dove, notifying users of the laws that may stop them from seeing the content that they wish to see, and—uniquely—allowing them to take action by contacting lawmakers to register their feelings about online censorship.
Get Involved
So far, progress on the Modtools.io tools has been slow, and we would like to change that, by turning this project into a fast-moving hothouse for innovation. So whether you’re a developer, moderator, researcher, or organization, we invite you to get in touch to help contribute, test, and improve these tools.
Better online communities don’t happen by accident. They’re built—deliberately, collaboratively, and in the open.
If you’re unable to donate your time, you can donate your money instead. Every donation that you make through this form helps run and maintain projects that fall under the Safer Hosting priority area, including Modtools.io. Thank you for your support!