Livestream service Periscope is introducing a brand new moderation system that puts the power fully in the hands of its users. 

When someone flags a potential troll for one of their comments, "flash juries" of other randomly-selected viewers will immediately be asked to vote on whether or not action should be taken.

If the jury finds that it should, the offender will receive a minute-long ban from commenting, with another problematic comment resulting in the person being muted for the entire broadcast.

The Twitter-owned service is hoping it will be a solution to time-delay problems associated with the old method of having to report comments to a moderator and await official action long after the comment has potentially been seen by thousands and the conversation has moved on. 

Aaron Wasserman, Periscope senior engineer, said:

"The thing that makes that makes [Periscope] so beautiful is it’s an intimate experience, but we realised that with that intimacy came the potential for abuse in a pretty significant way… comments are ephemeral…

"These comments are gone almost as quickly as they appear and the damage is done as quickly".

The new moderation method went on trial yesterday.

Viewers can opt out of "flash juries" if they so wish, whilst the broadcaster of the video can turn off moderation if they favour a no-holds barred discussion. 

People can still be entirely kicked out of broadcasts, and the options of limiting the audience to people you know and filing official reports with Periscope are still open to content creators.