In response to these debates, growing legislation and regulation, and the continued evolution of technology, trust and safety roles and functions are rapidly growing and changing. Jobs that exist today didn’t exist 10 years ago, and the same could be said of jobs 10 years from now. Companies are increasingly investing in keeping their users safe from a wide range of harms and misuses while also attempting to engender trust in product or services. They are working in an environment where users, government, and society are placing more expectations on platforms and service providers to prevent and mitigate harms and are thus realizing diverse trust and safety teams are necessary to be able to identify and address a wide range of harms others may not recognize.
For many platforms and services, it’s in their best interest to make these investments and actively enforce policies as users are less likely to use their services if they don’t feel safe or trust the interaction. However, these decisions are often weighed carefully because reducing types of harm for one user by moderating content may result in accusations of stifling free expression for another.
No matter where the responsibility lies, companies, and their trust and safety teams in particular, need to keep up with threat landscapes, anticipate how their services and platforms may be used in unintended ways, and think through the societal consequences of the technology they develop. Much in the same way that national security strategies must track the evolving tactics of terrorists, and cybersecurity organizations must keep up with the increasing sophistication of cyber attackers, trust and safety teams must understand the myriad ways in which users can be harmed and exploited, understand how a diverse user base interacts with and experiences its services, and keep up with the advances of technology and their impacts on society, including the downstream impacts of how online behavior impacts offline behavior.
The internet significantly influences societies and economies, and has revolutionized the way humans learn, self-actualize, interact with each other, create community, and do business—both at large and small scale. Ensuring the forums in which they engage are safe and operating the way they were intended means users are better able to accomplish their goals and create additional platforms to disperse a wide array of ideas and viewpoints. There will also likely be enhanced global cooperation as more nation-states develop sophisticated public policy surrounding digital spaces, and increasingly work to protect their citizens’ online privacy and safety. Companies are likely to invest heavily in these areas, ensuring no shortage of interesting roles to play in trust and safety in the future.
Acknowledgements
Authors│Jan Eissfeldt, Jeff Lazarus, Pia Shah
Special Thanks│Eric Davis, Eric Goldman, Kaofeng Lee, Amanda Menking, Cathryn Weems
