We need each other more than ever

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.

This week, I'm thinking about the power of the T&S community at a time when so much feels difficult. If you want to be part of that and to meet other EiM readers, read on.

Drop me a line if you have any reflections or questions about today's edition. Here we go! — Alice

PS Get to the end for a photo of my T&S-themed Halloween costume

A barn dance but for Trust & Safety

In a town near to where I live, in the leafy northeast of the US, someone has decided to hold an election-night barn dance.

I found out because they posted on our local online forum, which everyone reads. The ad invited the whole community to come out and have a dance, regardless of who they planned to cast their vote for today. No matter who is elected, the organisers explained, some folks will feel scared and disappointed. They asked everyone to remember the good in each other and the importance of uniting despite our differences. It was a touching show of community.

Too often, conversations about online safety can be a bit like the period before and after an election. There are lots of different groups at play — civil society, activists, academics, regulators, practitioners and media — and each has their own incentives, resource constraints, and priorities.

Tensions can run high because there’s a lot at stake. We see this in the conversations between child safety and encryption advocates, or in the endless debates about what causes the teen mental health crisis. From time to time, things can become reductive and we blame each other for negative outcomes.

There aren’t many avenues for open conversation between these different camps. All Tech is Human and TrustCon do a great job of facilitating connection between diverse stakeholders; however, these can be difficult conversations.

While we may argue about priorities, tradeoffs, or responsibilities, the T&S field — however you define it and wherever you draw the lines — has more in common than not. Those of us who care about online safety share a goal and values. All of us want the internet to be as safe and creative a space for possible for as many people as possible.

This begs the question: What would it take to bring together diverse groups of stakeholders from within the T&S space to come together and get to know each other informally, as people, before diving into the difficult conversations?

Sharing knowledge, confronting differences

We tried something like this not too long ago.

To celebrate Everything in Moderation’s 250th edition, Ben and I held a small, virtual call with a dozen or so newsletter subscribers. Super informal, no real agenda, just a chance to meet other people wanting to make the internet a safer, better place.

The attendees were wonderfully diverse — a mix of T&S practitioners, activists, and civil society workers who never would have met otherwise. And they got on like a house on fire.

We talked about what we were working on, what mattered to us, and what we thought the most important topics of the week were. Folks exchanged contact info and connected on LinkedIn. We laughed, scribbled down resources we hadn’t come across before and came away with a wider perspective than we had before.

Let’s dance

Whatever way the election goes this week, those are all things that we could do with right now.

So, as a pilot, Ben and I will be hosting weekly hangouts to allow EiM’s readers to meet each other, to share what you’re working on and to bring a question, concern or offer to a small group of like-minded individuals. Like the EiM birthday call, our hunch is that they’ll be both energising, entertaining and interesting to boot.

We plan to start with 8-10 people and rotate the case of hangout attendees each. Anyone that reads EiM can take part although paying members will get first refusal on a spot.

To join, all you have to do is reply to Ben or I via T&S Insider or Week in Review and we’ll add you to the calendar invite. If it’s full the week you want to attend, don’t worry — you’ll get first dibs on next week’s hangout.

The first hangout will be Friday 15th November at 7am PST / 10am EST / 3pm GMY / 11pm SGT and we’ll show up at the same time, every week, until the festive break. Maybe one person will join us, maybe a dozen. Let’s see.

These calls aren’t much, but it is our way of bringing people together to make the future a little better than it is today. You could say it’s our version of community barn dance.

Also worth reading

The struggle for trust online (Freedom House)
Why? Freedom House reported that that this is the 14th consecutive yearly decline in global internet freedom.

The Censorship of LGBTQ+ Content Online Corresponds with Declines in Freedom for Everyone (Tech Policy Press)
Why? Taking the Freedom House report linked above, this article looks at LGBTQ+ censorship and what it means for everyone.

Five easy ways to get your policy guidelines delivering higher moderation accuracy (Unitary)
Why? A practical guide for how to deliver policy guidelines in a way that makes it easier for moderators to follow.

The Online Safety Act is one year old. Has it made children any safer? (BBC)
Why? 1-2 lines justification for reading here