DTSP Releases Updated Safe Framework Specification for Assessments of Digital Products and Services

WASHINGTON — Today, the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP) released the updated Safe Framework Specification, detailing the complete methodology for conducting assessments of the DTSP Best Practices Framework for digital trust and safety.

This specification presents publicly, for the first time, the operational details of the Safe Framework assessment methodology, which DTSP previously summarized in December 2021. This latest version of the Safe Framework also incorporates updates to the methodology based on the piloting of the framework through the internal assessments conducted by DTSP founding partners, as described in the 2022 Safe Assessments report, as well as public consultations on the framework.

By compiling the DTSP Best Practices Framework and the Safe Framework into a specification that is widely and freely available to the public, DTSP seeks to increase transparency regarding our approach to trust and safety, provide resources that companies, governments, and civil society can access to improve understanding of state-of-the-art approaches to ensuring robust trust and safety operations, and contribute to global conversations about maturing the field of trust and safety through best practices and standards.

Navigating the DSA in Practice: A Stakeholder Discussion on Risk Assessments & Rights

By GNI and DTSP

At present, very large online platforms and search engines (VLOPs and VLOSEs) in the European Union are conducting their second round of mandatory risk assessments under the Digital Services Act (DSA). Due in August 2024, these assessments seek to identify the platforms’ own “systemic risks,” the mitigations they’ve taken to reduce those risks, and their crisis plans and responses. In late June, the Global Network Initiative (GNI) and the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP) are hosting a European Rights & Risks: Stakeholder Engagement Forum (“the Forum”) in Brussels to share insights on assessing systemic risks to fundamental rights as part of implementing the DSA.

Risk assessment best practices and Recital 90 of the DSA highlight the importance of engaging independent experts and civil society, among others, in order to draw on the best available insights about systemic risks, and tech platforms in the relevant context. Last year, GNI and DTSP, brought together our company members and experts from civil society and academia for two virtual workshops to explore the DSA’s approach to systemic risk assessment in more detail.

Building on the discussion and lessons learned from our 2023 workshop, the Forum aims to convene representatives from GNI and DTSP company members, civil society, and academia from across Europe and other jurisdictions to analyze, discuss, and inform ongoing DSA systemic risk assessments. Through discussion-based workshops and expert panels, the Forum will focus on relevant risks, fundamental rights, and the process of risk assessments. The Forum will be in person and complemented by a subsequent virtual event later this year.

Sharing insights and perspectives across companies and civil society can improve company risk assessment and mitigation. This collaborative approach can also reveal unintended consequences of regulation and identify instances of government overreach. The Forum is an initial opportunity to participate in and shape stakeholder engagement within the context of the evolving regulatory regime in the EU and other jurisdictions enacting similar laws.

In planning the forum, GNI and DTSP staff are taking time to consult our members and partners to learn more about how DSA implementation is going: what’s working, what’s not working, and where the gaps are, in service of mitigating risks to individuals and society while protecting fundamental rights. We have realized there are many questions and a pressing need for spaces to discuss these concerns.

After the event, GNI and DTSP will independently write and publish a high-level summary of the discussion. The Forum has been conceptualized and organized by GNI and DTSP. It is financially sponsored by Google, covering the costs of hosting the conference and staff and civil society travel, with additional travel support provided by TikTok.

We hope that this Forum will represent a critical step towards building a more robust framework for ongoing stakeholder engagement, particularly concerning DSA risk assessments. By fostering open dialogue between companies and civil society, we aim to collectively explore what meaningful stakeholder engagement might look like in the new regulatory landscape and how it can improve going forward. Given our multistakeholder community and experience working in this space, we hope to continue to enable engagement around tech company risk assessments and build a stronger bridge for continuous cross-stakeholder dialogue and learning.

About GNI
GNI is the leading multistakeholder forum for accountability, shared learning, and collective advocacy on government and company policies and practices at the intersection of technology and human rights. We set a global standard for responsible company decision-making to promote and advance freedom of expression and privacy rights across the technology ecosystem.

About DTSP
The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership is a unique initiative focused on promoting a safer and more trustworthy internet. We are committed to developing, using and promoting industry best practices, reviewed through internal and independent third-party assessments, to ensure consumer trust and safety when using digital services.

DTSP Submission to the United Nations on the Global Digital Compact

The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP) welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on the proposed structural elements for a Global Digital Compact.

Our partnership brings together providers of diverse digital products and services around shared commitments to trust and safety, and a framework of best practices and assessments grounded in the experience of practitioners. Current DTSP partners are listed on our website.

DTSP welcomes the inclusion within Commitment 2 the area of action to “Advance digital trust and safety, including specific measures to protect women, children, youth and persons in vulnerable situations against harms.” However, such a focus should build upon existing efforts within industry, in the trust and safety field, as well as complementary efforts by other stakeholders. Moreover, such efforts should be anchored in the protection and promotion of human rights as the introduction to Section 3 states.

Read our written submission here.

DTSP Submission to the UK Ofcom Consultation On Illegal Harms Online

The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP) responded to Ofcom’s call for public comment on Protecting People from Illegal Harms Online.

Read our submission here.

The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP) welcomes the opportunity to respond to Ofcom’s call for public comment on Protecting People from Illegal Harms Online.

Our partnership brings together providers of diverse digital products and services around shared commitments to trust and safety, and a framework of best practices and assessments grounded in the experience of practitioners. Current DTSP partners are listed on our website.

We would like to emphasize the following high-level points that are interwoven throughout our submission:

Our tailoring approach provides a different path to proportionality: DTSP appreciates and shares Ofcom’s view that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to trust and safety and to protecting people online. We agree that size is not the only factor that should be considered, and our assessment methodology, the Safe Framework, uses a tailoring framework that combines objective measures of organizational size and scale for the product or service in scope of assessment, as well as risk factors.

Enable services to identify, evaluate, and adjust for dynamic content- and conduct-related risks: The experience of our partner companies shows that services that enable online content and conduct face a diversity of risks, so that the proposed threshold for being a multi-risk service is unlikely to achieve the desired result of creating proportional levels of responsibility across the many thousands of services covered by the regulation.

Overly prescriptive codes may have unintended effects: Although there is significant overlap between the content of the DTSP Best Practices Framework and the proposed Illegal Content Codes of Practice, the level of prescription in the codes, their status as a safe harbor, and the burden of documenting alternative approaches will discourage services from using other measures that might be more effective. Our framework allows companies to use whatever combination of practices most effectively fulfills their overarching commitments to product development, governance, enforcement, improvement, and transparency. This helps ensure that our practices can evolve in the face of new risks and new technologies.

Rigorous evaluation of the maturity and effectiveness of practices offers a scalable and future-proof way forward: In the Safe Framework, it is the intensity and comprehensiveness of the assessment of those practices through which our approach is scaled. Our methodology allows services the ability to scale up or down their practices in response to identified risks, including the severity or frequency of particular harms occurring or potentially occurring via their products or services.

The importance of agreed terminology: We offer the definitions from our Trust & Safety Glossary of Terms as a starting point for aligning international efforts for online safety around shared terminology.

DTSP Comments on the Initiative to Protect Youth Mental Health, Safety & Privacy Online

The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP) filed comments with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in response to their request for comment on Kids Online Health and Safety.

Read the comments here.

The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP) welcomes the opportunity to respond to the NTIA request for comment (RFC) on the Initiative To Protect Youth Mental Health, Safety & Privacy online. DTSP shares the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of preventing and mitigating any adverse health effects while preserving the benefits that digital services have for the health and wellbeing of young people and society at large.

Our partnership brings together providers of diverse digital products and services around shared commitments to trust and safety, and a framework of best practices and assessments grounded in the experience of practitioners. Current DTSP partners are listed on our website. Please note that our submission is intended to complement those provided by partner companies, as well as the wide range of industry and multistakeholder collaborations and initiatives that focus on the safety and wellbeing of young people.

This response focuses on the state of industry practices for trust and safety overall, which support and enhance approaches intended to support the health and safety of minors. Where relevant, we also provide information on other DTSP initiatives that may be useful to NTIA as it considers further actions to protect youth mental health, safety, and privacy online. In particular, we highlight findings from our recent report on guiding principles and best practices for age assurance.

The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership Welcomes Match Group

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 Match Group as its newest partner.

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

“We are pleased to join the DTSP where together we can unite on our collective efforts to help ensure a secure digital ecosystem for all,” said Rory Kozoll, Senior Vice President, Central Platform and Technologies for Match Group. “The safety of our users across our platforms is essential, and we are committed to continuing this important work and collaborating with experts and partners in our industry and beyond.” 

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 a set of common trust and 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 & Safety practices of partner companies; 
• developed a Glossary of Trust & Safety Terms; and
• released a set of guiding principles and best practices for age assurance online.

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, Match Group, Meta Platforms, Inc., Microsoft, Pinterest, Reddit, TikTok, Twitch, and Zoom. For more information, please visit dtspartnership.org. 

About Match Group:

Match Group (NASDAQ: MTCH), through its portfolio companies, is a leading provider of digital technologies designed to help people make meaningful connections. Our global portfolio of brands includes Tinder®, Match®, Hinge®, Meetic®, OkCupid®, Pairs™, PlentyOfFish®, OurTime®, Azar®, Hakuna® Live, and more, each built to increase our users’ likelihood of connecting with others. Through our trusted brands, we provide tailored services to meet the varying preferences of our users. Our services are available in over 40 languages to our users all over the world.

DTSP holds Open Forum at the 2023 Internet Governance Forum

The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP) will be at the 18^th meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, in Kyoto, Japan, from October 8 to 12, 2023. The Forum’s overarching theme is: The Internet We Want – Empowering All People. DTSP executive director David Sullivan and head of outreach and engagement Farzaneh Badiei will be in Kyoto and look forward to meeting with interested stakeholders from the global internet governance community.  

DTSP is holding an Open Forum, “Unlocking Trust and Safety to Preserve the Open Internet,” on Wednesday, October 11 at 2:45pm JST, (WS 11 – Room J). At the forum, IGF in-person and remote participants can learn more about DTSP and the role of trust and safety with regard to internet governance. The interactive roundtable discussion will feature the following panelists:

• David Sullivan, DTSP
• Nobuhisa Nishigata, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, Japan
• Tajeshwari Devi, Online Safety Commission, Fiji (virtual)
• Angela McKay, Google
• Brent Carey, Netsafe (virtual)
• Kyoungmi Oh, OpenNet Korea

As a co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Coalition for Digital Safety, David Sullivan will also speak at the session, “Enhancing Digital Safety: The World Economic Forum Global Coalition’s Collaborative Approach,” on Monday October 9 at 1:10pm JST (WS5 – Room B2).

Finally, DTSP will also have a display booth at the IGF Village, where we encourage interested stakeholders to meet with us and learn more about our work.

The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership Releases Guiding Principles and Best Practices for Age Assurance 

WASHINGTON — Today the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership, a first-of-its-kind initiative aimed at promoting a safer and more trustworthy internet, unveiled a new report identifying guiding principles and best practices for age assurance online. 
 
The report describes a range of best practices — specifically, five guiding principles for age assurance and three dozen examples of best practices in line with those principles.
 
“Providing age-appropriate online experiences is a key component of digital trust and safety. But there’s no one-size-fits-all solution — different providers and products for users with very different expectations will need to adopt different approaches to age assurance,” said DTSP’s Executive Director David Sullivan.
 
“Every approach to age assurance presents trade-offs. More accurate methods may require more collection of user data, or potentially lead to inequitable outcomes for users’ ability to access online products and services,” he continued.
 
DTSP has identified overarching age assurance principles and practices that may be deployed as part of the overall DTSP Best Practices Framework. Because there is no single solution, the specific practices that services use may vary by digital product or feature and evolve with both the challenges faced and advances made in age assurance technologies, as well as with evolving regulations. The Partnership hopes that by presenting this framework, we can help support effective practices across the digital ecosystem.
 
For more information, please visit dtspartnership.org. Members of the press can contact the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership at press@dtspartnership.org.

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