Denník N is Slovakia's top independent media outlet with 76,000 subscribers. TrollWall AI transformed their community management by eliminating full-time moderation staff while automatically filtering toxic comments across multiple platforms. Previously struggling with 60,000+ monthly comments across eight platforms, Denník N now achieves 24/7 automated protection. The solution enables safer YouTube expansion and transforms part-time moderators into content creators. All while protecting journalists from death threats and restoring critical subscriber trust.
About the Company
Denník N has redefined independent journalism in Slovakia. Since its launch 10 years ago, it has become the country's leading subscription-based news medium, serving 76,000 monthly subscribers with a sustainable business model where reader satisfaction directly impacts revenue. It represents a critical test case for subscription media survival in toxic digital environments. Unlike ad-revenue media that prioritize clicks over community, Denník N's subscription model means toxic comment environments directly threaten their financial sustainability.
When paying subscribers began requesting comment section closures due to harassment and hate speech, it represented an existential business risk that demanded an immediate solution.
Denník N is committed to providing comprehensive news coverage while actively supporting civil society and democratic values. The medium’s growth from a single Facebook presence to eight social media platforms reflects both their success and the challenges of an increasingly toxic digital landscape of social media.
By implementing TrollWall AI's automated moderation solution, Denník N achieved:
- 23.5 % average toxicity rate automatically moderated and managed across four dominant platforms, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube
- From October 2023 to September 2025, TrollWall AI processed 1,888,001 comments on Instagram and Facebook alone and automatically hid 471,230 harmful interactions, with peak toxicity rates reaching 45.28 % on polarizing content.
- Team capacity transformation from defensive moderation shifts during the day to strategic content creation
- Safe platform expansion enabling YouTube channel launch with comment moderation integrated
The Problem
A Modern Newsroom in a Toxic Landscape
Denník N's digital expansion created an unprecedented moderation challenge. Their growth from Facebook-only to eight social platforms: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, X, and BlueSky brought exponential increases in both reach and toxic content exposure.
Toxicity Levels and Scale Impossibility: Publishing sometimes 60+ daily posts across eight platforms, generating 60,000 monthly comments, made manual coordinated comment moderation almost impossible. Even with different team members responsible for various content types, like video specialists handling Instagram and TikTok, while article writers managed Facebook. TikTok emerged as the most problematic toxic platform, where videos attracting 500 comments would typically see 450 of them containing hate speech, vulgar language, or death threats. The sheer volume meant that viral content often went unmoderated for days, with staff discovering comment floods only by accident.
Journalist Safety Crisis: Beyond routine hate speech and bullying, reporters also occasionally faced death threats when covering minority rights, political protests, and investigative pieces. Pride-related coverage generated explicit death threats with comments like "you guys should get killed!" and "kill the editors of Denník N." Political protest coverage, whether anti-government demonstrations or civic marches, sparked accusations that Denník N orchestrated events rather than simply reporting them. Cultural events combining politics and public gatherings, such as Východná festival featuring the Minister of Culture, attracted both heckling documentation and conspiracy theories claiming Denník N artificially added “booing” sounds from the audience targeting the minister. Even sensitive journalism like interviews with crime victims, particularly sexual assault cases, generated victim-blaming harassment that sometimes forced complete comment section closures.
Subscriber Backlash and Brand Protection: Most critically, paying subscribers began requesting comment section closures, directly threatening Denník N's subscription-based business model. When your revenue depends on reader satisfaction, toxic comment environments represent an existential business risk, not just moderation challenges.
Denník N needed a solution that would maintain their commitment to open dialogue and press freedom while protecting both their staff and subscriber experience from the escalating toxicity that threatened their mission of quality independent journalism.
The Solution
TrollWall AI as Community Guardian
Denník N became an early adopter of TrollWall AI, implementing comprehensive automated moderation to filter toxic content, protect journalists, and maintain professionalism across all social channels.
Multi-Platform Implementation Strategy: TrollWall AI was deployed across four social media platforms, providing unified moderation standards regardless of network-specific challenges. The system adapted to each platform's unique toxicity patterns, from TikTok's extreme vulgar content to Facebook's coordinated political harassment campaigns.
Intelligent Content Filtering: The AI agent excelled at identifying multiple threat categories simultaneously. It detected death threats targeting journalists covering sensitive topics like minority rights protests, filtered coordinated spam campaigns attempting to undermine investigative reporting, blocked personal harassment directed at individual reporters, and hid misinformation designed to discredit Denník N's factual reporting.
24/7 Automated Protection: The solution provided continuous monitoring across all platforms, ensuring no viral content went unmoderated, regardless of timing. This proved especially crucial for breaking news coverage and live event reporting, where comment volume could spike unpredictably and toxic engagement often peaked during off-hours.
Strategic Platform Expansion Enablement: TrollWall AI's comprehensive coverage gave Denník N confidence to launch previously postponed initiatives. Most significantly, they activated their YouTube channel with full comment sections enabled, something previously impossible due to moderation capacity constraints and concerns about unfiltered hate speech appearing beneath their video content.
As Patrícia Voľanská, Director of Social Media, Podcast and Video Production for Denník N concluded: "With online media, it's unrealistic to expect people to manually moderate content. We have about 60,000 comments every month, and I can't imagine how much time a person would have to spend doing that, or how many people we would have to employ full-time. TrollWall AI saves us both time and money as well as capacity, which we can then allocate to something else entirely.”
The Results
Transformative Impact Across All Moderated Channels
The transformation exceeded expectations, fundamentally changing how Slovakia's leading independent media approached digital engagement.
Comprehensive Toxicity Management: Over 2 years, TrollWall AI automatically hid 471,230 toxic interactions on Instagram and Facebook alone, maintaining a 26 % average toxicity rate with peaks reaching 45.28 % on polarizing content. This scale demonstrates that nearly one in four comments required intervention - a manual moderation challenge that threatened both journalist safety and subscriber satisfaction. This reveals the true scale of the challenge Denník N faced.
Team Productivity Revolution: The transformation in team productivity had a significant business impact on human resource optimization. The part-time moderator initially hired for comment filtering could redirect substantial time toward content creation, effectively gaining an unexpected additional team member for strategic initiatives. The 2-3 daily hours previously required for manual moderation were redirected toward journalism and audience engagement, effectively increasing team capacity and focus for strategic work.
"Thanks to TrollWall AI, our part-time comment moderator, who is checking the TrollWall AI app daily, now has extra time available, because TrollWall AI is doing it all. She is just double-checking, and thanks to that, she has become involved in content creation as well. It's like TrollWall AI added a content person that we weren't even expecting,” said Patrícia from Denník N.
Brand Safety and Subscriber Trust Restoration: The impact on subscriber satisfaction was immediate and measurable. Complaints about toxic comment sections ceased, and the publication restored confidence among paying subscribers who had previously requested comment closures. The improved environment enabled meaningful discussions to flourish, supporting Denník N's mission of fostering informed civic dialogue.
YouTube Revenue Expansion Enabled: TrollWall AI's protection enabled the previously impossible YouTube channel launch with full comment functionality. Concerns about unmoderated hate speech had forced comment disabling and prevented video content expansion. The TrollWall AI automated system provided the security needed to explore new revenue opportunities, including YouTube monetization and viewer engagement tools.
The shift from reactive crisis management to proactive community building represented a fundamental transformation in how Denník N approached its digital presence, enabling it to focus on its core mission while maintaining safe, productive online spaces for democratic discourse.
Client Testimonial
"No media house should operate without AI moderation. It's absolutely essential for protecting your staff, building public trust, and freeing the team to focus on journalism rather than fighting trolls all the time."
Patrícia Voľanská, Director of Social Media, Podcast and Video Production, Denník N
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