The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership Releases Inaugural Trust & Safety Glossary of Terms

Today the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership released the inaugural edition of its Trust & Safety Glossary of Terms.

This is the first industry effort by technology companies, representing various products, sizes, and business models, to develop a common Trust and Safety lexicon.

“By defining common terms used every day in the trust and safety field, we’re taking a practical step toward consistency, clarity, and transparency with the goal of making this work more legible to a range of readers, including digital service users, tech company employees, and anyone else interested in learning more about how trust and safety work gets done,” said glossary Editor-in-Chief and DTSP advisor Alex Feerst.

The Trust & Safety Glossary of Terms consists of more than 100 terms across four categories:

• content concepts and policies;
• common types of abuse;
• enforcement practices; and
• Trust and Safety technology.

The glossary has been updated to incorporate valuable input received from academic organizations, industry partners, regulators, and other global stakeholders during the public consultation held earlier this year. Updates made since the consultation include shorter definitions accompanied by bulleted commentary, a format that is designed to increase the usability of the document while providing a place for context and examples that address the complexity of certain terms.

“Instead of sitting on a virtual shelf, our goal for the glossary is for it to be a useful resource for trust and safety professionals and those who are engaging with them in pursuit of safer and more trustworthy digital products and services,” said DTSP Executive Director David Sullivan.

DTSP will share more information about how the glossary was developed and how we responded to comments received during the public consultation in a forthcoming publication.

Workshop Summary: Implementing Risk Assessments Under DSA

The EU Digital Services Act (DSA) is built on years of conversations and experimentation around how best to identify and control risks associated with digital content and services. The DSA recognises and seeks to support the steps that many platforms have taken voluntarily over the last 15 years, including expanded transparency reporting, robust content moderation, and increasingly mature approaches to human rights due diligence. Recognising the positive potential of these and other rights-enhancing mechanisms, the DSA seeks to ensure that they are applied more broadly, consistently, and effectively across the online ecosystem. This substantive continuity is reinforced by the DSA’s open architecture, which leaves room for, and in some cases explicitly encourages, opportunities for intermediaries, civil society, researchers, auditors, dispute resolution bodies, and others to engage with each other and with regulators to understand and improve digital services.

In the spirit of this openness, on 24 and 25 May 2023, the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership (DTSP) and the Global Network Initiative (GNI) invited our respective company members to join with a wide range of academic and civil society experts in conversation around the risk assessment provision of the DSA (Article 34). The conversations were conducted virtually and spread over two, 150 minute workshops, in order to maximise participation across key time zones.

• Read Discussion Summary

The purpose of the workshops, supported by the BrainBox Institute, was to facilitate input from civil society experts about how companies can understand and undertake risk assessment and design risk mitigation as laid out under the DSA, as well as for civil society to hear questions, concerns, and ideas from companies.

For further details, please see the event Agenda and Reference Material below:

• Agenda and Overview

• Additional Reference Material

The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership Welcomes Twitch

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP), a first-of-its-kind initiative aimed at promoting a safer and more trustworthy internet, today welcomed Twitch as its newest partner.

DTSP brings together a diverse range of innovative digital companies, representing various products, sizes and business models. Twitch joins the DTSP’s growing list of participating companies, which also includes Apple, Bitly, Discord, Google, LinkedIn, Meta Platforms, Inc., Microsoft, Pinterest, Reddit, TikTok, and Zoom.

The partnership is committed to developing industry best practices, reviewed through internal and independent third-party assessments, to ensure consumer safety and trust when using digital services.

DTSP launched in February 2021 to mature and professionalize the Trust and Safety field, in pursuit of a safer and more trustworthy internet. Since then we have:

• released our first set of common Trust & Safety commitments, articulating the 35 Best Practices our members are using to keep consumers safe;
• implemented a first round of Safe Assessments, evaluating the trust and safety practices of partner companies;
• developed a Glossary of Trust & Safety Terms for public consultation;
• participated in events with peer organizations across the United States, Europe, and Asia;
• engaged extensively with experts from industry, governments and civil society.

For more information, please visit dtspartnership.org. Members of the press can contact the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership at press@dtspartnership.org.

About The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership

The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership is a first-of-its kind initiative focused on promoting a safer and more trustworthy internet. The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership includes Apple, Bitly, Discord, Google, LinkedIn, Meta Platforms, Inc., Microsoft, Pinterest, Reddit, TikTok, Twitch, and Zoom. For more information, please visit dtspartnership.org.

Connect with DTSP at RightsCon

The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership will be at RightsCon 2023, in Costa Rica and online.

The 12th edition of the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age, RightsCon brings together experts and advocates from civil society, governments, and technology companies. DTSP executive director David Sullivan and head of outreach and engagement Farzaneh Badiei will be in San José and look forward to participating in the following sessions:

• For trust and safety online, can practices make perfect?
  Wednesday June 7, 2023 | 9 – 10am CST
  • In-person roundtable with speakers from Discord, PEN America, and the Centre for Studies on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information. More information here.
• Beyond social media: the conundrums of moderation elsewhere in the stack
  Thursday June 8, 2023 | 10:15 – 11:15am CST
  • Co-hosted with Zoom and featuring speakers from Cloudflare and the Center for Democracy & Technology. More information here.