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Trust and Safety is a critical function at many of the world’s leading digital service companies. The people working in Trust and Safety help to promote a safer and more trustworthy internet.
The internet is more than pixels and algorithms. It is guided by Trust and Safety professionals who spend their days keeping people safe from abuse. This critical function at digital services companies helps to promote a safer and more trustworthy internet. Each company is guided by its own values, product aims, digital tools, and human-led processes to make tough decisions about how to enable a broad range of human expression and conduct, while working to identify and prevent harmful content and conduct.
Until now, the field of Trust and Safety has not yet developed the kinds of best practices and assessments that have been crucial to maturing and organizing other tech disciplines like cybersecurity.
That’s why leading technology companies are coming together to form the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership.
A first-of-its-kind partnership, we are committed to developing industry best practices, verified through internal and independent third-party assessments, to ensure consumer trust and safety when using digital services.
As discussions on these important issues continue, the group will engage with consumer and user advocates, policymakers, law enforcement, relevant NGOs and various industry-wide experts to help us develop these best practices.
All participating companies in the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership agree on five fundamental commitments that a digital service should make to promote a safer and more trustworthy internet. Also known as the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership Best Practices Framework, we regard the following to be industry best practices:
Identify, evaluate, and adjust for content- and conduct-related risks in product development.
Adopt explainable processes for product governance, including which team is responsible for creating rules, and how rules are evolved.
Conduct enforcement operations to implement product governance.
Assess and improve processes associated with content- and conduct-related risks.
Ensure that relevant trust & safety policies are published to the public, and report periodically to the public and other stakeholders regarding actions taken.
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.
The industry term “trust and safety” refers to the part of a digital service’s operations that focuses on understanding and addressing the harmful content or conduct associated with that service.
Technology companies have made trust and safety a priority for many years, with dedicated professionals taking on the most difficult areas of the internet to reduce and prevent harm on and offline. Each company is guided by its own values, product aims, digital tools, and human-led processes to make tough decisions about how to enable a broad range of human expression and conduct, while working to identify and prevent harmful content or conduct.
The people who work in trust and safety help to promote a safer and more trustworthy internet. The Digital Trust & Safety Partnership is a first step to developing the best practices and assessments that are crucial to maturing and organizing the trust and safety field.
There are important discussions occurring in homes, schools, and businesses around the world and at all different levels of government on what digital trust and safety should look like. Our partnership takes on this issue with transparency, through a best practices framework that helps companies to reduce harms associated with online content and conduct, backed up by rigorous internal and third-party assessment.
The participating companies are promoting industry best practices on issues related to trust and safety. We began by releasing a recommended framework, informed by industry experience, followed by an evaluation of company implementation of the practices. We engage with consumer and user advocates, policymakers, regulators, law enforcement, relevant NGOs, and industry-wide experts worldwide to help us continue to develop these best practices.
Partnership participants have worked together to define “trust and safety” as a regular business function, identify common trust and safety commitments, and outline the best practices we use to uphold these commitments.
In December 2021, we published the Safe Framework, our methodology for assessing and evaluating these practices. Our first report, based on internal assessments by 10 participating companies, was published in July 2022. We have since been working to enhance our process to support independent, third-party evaluation of company assessments. Our aim is to conduct a pilot round of independent assessments in 2023.
No. It’s important to note that this is not about individual company policies or decisions, but rather about how to do and assess the work of trust and safety overall. During the internal review process, each participating company will assess how it adheres to the commitments of trust and safety. While we are sharing insights, every partner continues to develop its own policies with respect to their own service.
DTSP is a partnership of organizations that aspire to implement our best practices in the products and services for which they conduct trust and safety operations. Our mission is the industry-led development of best practices, and promoting awareness and understanding of those practices within industry and among critical stakeholders.
Our membership does not include vendor companies, nor are we a professional society for individuals working in trust and safety.
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