I read the State of Safety Tech report so you don’t have to (but you should)

I'm Alice Hunsberger. Trust & Safety Insider is my weekly rundown on the topics, industry trends and workplace strategies that trust and safety professionals need to know about to do their job. Happy new year to you all.

Wow. Yesterday's announcement by Meta dominated the news coverage and will be the big talking point for the coming days. Like many of you, I have a lot of thoughts but I'll save them for next Monday's newsletter.

In the meantime, a big thanks to all T&S Insider readers who filled out the EiM end-of-year audience survey, it means a lot. We’ll report on our the results soon but a couple things stood out:

• Many of you said you have too much to read and too little time, but staying up to date is important.
• Many of you are thinking about content moderation, tooling, and practical applications and insights.

Luckily, that’s what T&S Insider is for!

This week, I’m digging into an 88-page report with a lot of really fascinating detail on Safety Tech providers, the state of the T&S industry, and predictions on regulation and AI. But if you don’t have time, keep reading for my three takeaways from the report.

As always, get in touch if you'd like your questions answered or just want to share your feedback. Here we go! — Alice

Three things to know about the future of Safety Tech

Let's be honest, the T&S industry is not short of research and reports. In any given week, Ben and I will read and share new outputs from a wide range of non-profits and think tanks, governments and regulators, academic institutions and platforms.

The State of Safety Tech stands out from that list for its focus on technology or tools that facilitate safe online experiences, or 'Safety Tech' as it has become known in the UK. Commissioned by Paladin Capital and produced by PUBLIC, which supports startups to transform public services, and advisory firm Perspective Economics, it charts the growth of a sector that is growing as a result of online safety regulation around the world.

The 2024 edition was published at the end of last year when most T&S teams were wrapping up for the year. So I had a read and decided to share my takeaways with T&S Insider readers. In no particular order...

The Safety Tech sector is growing, but there were layoffs on the vendor side

Despite a 14% increase in Safety Tech providers this year, the sector has lost jobs:

“We suspect that the decline in employees may be driven by a combination of factors, including global pressure to reduce operating costs across the global tech industry and increased adoption of AI tooling leading to productivity improvements.”

The report estimates about 600 Safety Tech layoffs since the 2023 report was published. This is a 4% decrease, bringing the total global employees in dedicated Safety Tech services to 15,731. Interestingly, they estimate 1 in 12 T&S professionals worldwide are in Ireland, predicting emerging T&S tech companies there as a result.

The report also estimates 597 Safety Tech providers, with 402 fully dedicated to T&S. Compare this to ~3,500 cybersecurity providers to see how much more nascent T&S tech is.

There are many ways to prove Return On Investment (ROI), but we’re still figuring it out

My favourite part of the report was this chart on proving ROI. The report says there is a “systemic knowledge gap” around proving ROI which “indicates the need for Safety Tech providers and sector champions, like OSTIA and forward-leaning governments, to play a more proactive role in customer education, both in B2B and B2C contexts, on behalf of the sector.”

The report also highlights how many buyers/decision-makers are in departments and positions outside of T&S, like Product, Brand Management, Data Science, and Engineering. It can’t be a coincidence that we (as a T&S industry) are bending over backwards to prove ROI when many of the decision-makers are outside of T&S. We must educate these folks about T&S and bring them into our world.

Compare this to the cybersecurity industry, which is much more established:

“While cybersecurity and Safety Tech markets remain for the time being distinct and discrete, this highlights reasonable overlap in customer sets (e.g., CISO, Operations, Data Science) suggesting opportunity for greater joined-up go-to-market with cybersecurity firms and potential for increased bundling of offerings as part of an integrated security/Safety Tech stack. Conversely, CISO’s have been the traditional contact point for those selling cybersecurity solutions, whereas Safety Tech vendors have a wider range of potential client contact points and budget centers across organizations from general operations thru to brand & marketing, risk & compliance to HR & legal.”

T&S leaders often feel underfunded and under-resourced, indicating room for collaboration and user education between vendors, platforms, and various departments within platforms. A key to success is for T&S experts to work closely with CPOs, CISOs, and CTOs on getting cross-departmental buy-in for new tech.

Vendors live to help folks at platforms prove ROI. If you’re at a platform and want to implement technology or services but face budget pushback, ask the vendor for help running a test or showing ROI and efficiency case studies.

Regulators may soon pressure platforms with specific tech guidance and high-profile fines (aka carrot and stick)

Some platforms are already implementing new Safety Tech due to regulatory pressure, while many are taking a “wait and see” approach; this is because specific guidance for best practices and requirements is still unclear. Smaller companies or those without dedicated T&S or compliance leadership are being especially cautious, the report notes.

In response, government and regulators may work with standards bodies and industries to “give greater clarity to platforms about their obligations regarding specific solutions and technologies,” creating more key standards and certifications and recommending specific solutions.

The report predicts that “EU and UK regulators are likely to take more high-profile enforcement action in 2025,” leading platforms to adopt more Safety Tech in the next year or two to avoid fines. This means we’ll see an increase in T&S budgets, resulting in more adoption of Safety Tech, more jobs and opportunities in the provider/ vendor sector, and hopefully safer platforms for users.

Also worth reading

State of T&S Survey (Jeff Dunn and Katie Dunn, Trust & Safety network)
Why? If you work in T&S (or would like to) please fill out this survey on the state of Trust & Safety.

Reading the Systemic Risk Assessments for Major Speech Platforms: Notes and Observations (Tim Bernard, Tech Policy Press)
Why? One of the most interesting things about working in a still-developing industry is the lack of standardisation that we have. Tim Bernard read the Systemic Risk Assessments from major companies and noted how they approached the problem, how thorough the assessments were, and what insights we can take away for each platform.

Death Of A Forum: How The UK’s Online Safety Act Is Killing Communities (Mike Masnick, TechDirt)
Why? "The promise of the internet was supposed to be that it allowed anyone to set up whatever they wanted online, whether it’s a blog or a small forum. The UK has decided that the only forums that should remain online are those run by the largest companies in the world."

A different take on AI safety: A research agenda from the Columbia Convening on AI openness and safety (Ayah Bdeir, Camille François & Ludovic Peran, Mozilla)
Why? A recap from a conference on AI safety and open source with some interesting takeaways on projects for the future.

AI Safety Index (Future of Life Institute)
Why? A report on safety practices for major AI companies, with grades for factors such as risk assessments, safety frameworks, and transparency. There is obviously an agenda with this report, but the takeaways are concerning (a lot of F grades, and only one B). Also check out this recap from Time.