In late July, as part of Linda Raftree’s work with iMedia, she attended TrustCon, an annual conference that brings together Trust & Safety (T&S) professionals — those who work to maintain safe, respectful, and secure online environments. T&S professionals manage content moderation, prevent misinformation, and protect users from harmful experiences such as online abuse and exploitation. This role has become essential as platforms face criticism for their role in facilitating societal harm, from disinformation to abuse.
T&S work is very similar to the safeguarding and protection work done at civil society organizations, which is increasingly becoming digital. As development and humanitarian organizations integrate more digital platforms into their work and as the use of social media and digital services expands globally, safeguarding and protection professionals find themselves needing to address challenges like tech-facilitated gender-based violence, disinformation, and online child sexual exploitation and abuse. Unfortunately, many civil society organizations lack the necessary investments and skills in these areas.
From the platform side, a significant issue is the disparity in investment and attention to T&S challenges in majority world regions and languages. Tech companies often prioritize safety measures in high-revenue regions, leaving vulnerable populations in lower-income countries at higher risk of platform-related harms. There are also multiple challenges facing T&S researchers in majority world countries. Farhana Shahid lays out in more detail how scholars in the majority world struggle with colonialism in content moderation research.
More research in this space is needed to explore how platforms can be held accountable for ensuring user safety globally. Key questions include how to decolonize T&S by empowering local researchers and civil society organizations, understanding how misinformation spreads in non-Western contexts, and how socioeconomic inequities amplify harm. A deeper collaboration between T&S professionals, researchers, and civil society is needed to tackle these challenges effectively.
By bridging these sectors, we can better protect online communities and build a more inclusive and safer digital world.
The full report can be read here