Marc Andreessen of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz referred to trust and safety as the enemy in The Techno-Optimists Manifesto. I decided to look to see if there was any truth in the “enemy” statement, and if there was, how we could move from enemies to allies.
The Techno-Optimist Manifesto
On October 16, Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz cofounder and general partner, released The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. It comprises 15 chapters of mostly short statements that blend into an extremely optimistic view of the combination of free markets and technological advancement.
This was met with frustration by the online safety community, most of whom promote a safety-first approach to technology development as simultaneously good for society, and profitability.
It’s easy to dismiss the manifesto, or to embrace the idea that Andreessen simply doesn’t understand modern online safety. But if Andreessen feels that way, it’s safe to assume others in his position will also – which is a problem for online safety.
Chapter 13 ends with an invitation to “Become our allies in the pursuit of technology, abundance, and life”.
There has been plenty of commentary about the manifesto, and about the flaws in its logic. I don’t want to add to that. The manifesto reflects Marc Andreessen’s world view – and no doubt the view of many other people in similar roles. I’m interested in why Andreessen feels the way he does about our sector, and whether there is anything we can do about it.
The Enemy
Chapter 13 is titled “The Enemy” and the third paragraph in that chapter states: “Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades – against technology and against life – under varying names like ‘existential risk’, ‘sustainability’, ‘ESG’, ‘Sustainable Development Goals’, ‘social responsibility’, ‘stakeholder capitalism’, ‘Precautionary Principle’, ‘trust and safety’, ‘tech ethics’, ‘risk management’, ‘de-growth’, ‘the limits of growth’.”
The term online safety isn’t mentioned in the manifesto, but it does incorporate many of those concepts. Those varying names Andreessen refers to describing the demoralization campaign are the lexicon of online safety. Although not every online safety expert would describe their work using every term which is part of our problem – but we’ll come to that later.
As online safety people, we advise entrepreneurs to articulate and promote their safety focus as part of their pitch for investment. However, in front of a potential investor like Andreessen – it seems this might have a contrary effect. Andreessen, and presumably others in his position, hold a view that a focus on things like trust and safety and tech ethics are potential impediments to achieving what they are seeking to achieve. To address this, there seems to be three logical paths forward for the online safety community.
Option One: Argue
The majority of the online safety community would love an audience with Andreessen to convince him that he is wrong. We would present an argument that a focus on safety creates better technology which in turn is more inclusive and is therefore more likely to be successful. Trust and safety, social responsibility, and ethics can be positive forces in the development of technology – both from a social justice and an economic perspective. However, Andreessen sees the world the way he does because of his experiences. For every argument or example we provide, he’ll have a counter argument or example. Successfully changing minds through a frontal assault seems unlikely.
Option Two: Prove them wrong
There are VCF that do see safety capability as an important part of the investment equation (even if it’s only to decrease compliance risks). We could focus our efforts on working with them and ignore anybody that shares the views of Andreessen’s manifesto. Over time we should be able to prove that a safety-first approach is superior. Realistically though, we know that profit success can be achieved with a safety-last approach and the next big thing could easily follow The Techno-Optimist Manifesto approach – creating another wave of safety challenges to be resolved later.
Option Three: Look for common ground
This manifesto states that the enemies of the techno optimist are not bad people – but rather bad ideas. So, the good news is that when the manifesto says the public have been subject to a “mass demoralisation campaign” under varying names – it is not saying that all trust and safety people are the enemies of progress. In fact, if it had said “… society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades – against technology and against life – by people misusing terms like…”, many people in the online safety community would probably have agreed.
What actually is online safety?
There has been considerable debate about the quality of various recent safety interventions and regulatory efforts within the online safety community. A more sensitive, and less traversed topic is what is driving those initiatives of debatable merit. We have seen the terms and indeed mechanisms of trust and safety, online ethics and social responsibility borrowed by communities and interest groups with a range of objectives.
Some of that borrowing is downright dishonest, but most of it isn’t. There is no agreed definition for online safety, and so it is open to interpretation. For many, it is simply a matter of protection – from whatever harms technology may facilitate or enable, and through whatever means required. For others, online safety provides an opportunity to counteract the existing imbalances of society. Latterly, many of the loudest voices in online safety discussions have been from those representing victimised groups – both online and offline.
As a result, the term online safety has grown to absorb a superset of issues and interventions addressing challenges that exist online and in society more generally.
Online safety is … safety online
I’ve always subscribed to the belief that the primary purpose of online safety (and trust and safety) activity is to enable all people to use technology – and our specific contribution is to counter the safety issues that technology brings (or amplifies) which might prevent that.
Using my definition, online safety operates in partnership with other social justice causes but it doesn’t absorb them. I accept that others will see my definition as too narrow, or argue it is naive to think you can treat the online symptoms without solving the wider problems of society. Others will criticise me for not being ambitious enough and missing an opportunity to use the technology revolution to shape the world for the better.
In the end, if you want to help people – you must be pragmatic. This means focusing on goals that are achievable, influencing what we can, and using the tools we have access to. As an online safety person, I see my role as contributing to create better online spaces and experiences. And I see that work as contributing to creating a better society.
A reasonable ask?
I more focused definition for online safety also helps create a more reasonable expectation for potential allies. There is a big difference between expecting a startup tech company to create systems that protect users on its services and asking them to build systems to negate any negative impact their service (or users of their service) could have in society more generally.
By focusing online safety on countering the safety issues that technology brings (or amplifies), we’re able to show value from both a social justice and economic perspective. By narrowing the scope of online safety in this way, it should be possible to meet the techno optimists like Andreessen in the middle.
