Online Safety needs greater collaboration with the technology industry

The basics

The transportation industry has been utilising a “three Es” model for nearly 100 years. Educate people to develop their skills. Engineer safer products, and develop and enforce rules.

In the early 2000s – the online safety community adopted a similar model. It was recognised that safety online could not be achieved without all three components, and that the benefits from each would be greatest when they are aligned and pushing in the same direction.

The benefits

Online safety is good for everyone – because the confident and safe use of technology benefits everybody. But it is worth noting that nobody benefits more from trust in their platforms than the platforms themselves.

Playing their part

When it comes to safety online, there is a role for each sector that can only be effectively performed by that sector. Tech platforms can write their own rules and enforce them on their platforms – but only Governments can implement and enforce laws on its citizens and across multiple platforms. Equally, only tech platforms can actually implement the tools and systems that make their platforms safe.

Tech platforms can lobby for effective legislation, but they can’t force Governments to produce it. Governments can regulate minimum safety standards – but they can’t regulate each individual company to go the extra mile and build the best possible safety systems.

Specialist knowledge

Only tech companies really understand the tools and systems required to build those best possible safety systems.

Lawmakers with this knowledge could produce regulation that pushes the tech industry towards that “best possible” goal. They could try to acquire that knowledge by employing former industry people – or try and pry it out of an unwilling industry through forced transparency.  

It would be a lot quicker and simpler if industry would openly share it. That level of trust and open exchange of knowledge seems a far cry from where we are today.

Pick a side

Throughout the 2010s – a series of high-profile failures of the tech giants to protect data and users undermined public trust. Big tech was seen to be allowing elections to be manipulated, avoiding tax, eroding our personal privacy, putting lives at risk, and running discriminatory operations. By the end of the decade, the techlash was in full swing.  

Everybody was expected to pick a side – or risk being cancelled. You were either against big tech, or you were with them. There was no middle ground.

Forget building partnership and consensus. Media coverage became the new yardstick of online safety success. Jabs at big tech were easy wins.

Traditional media poured gasoline on the fire techlash.

Big tech has been eating into the traditional media pie for a long time. There is no doubt that many in that industry will have enjoyed landing a few counter punches. But the reality is that conflict gets covered because it is simply better content. Regulators and technology CEOs at war is a much better story than regulators and technology CEOs working together.

The pressure of the techlash did seem to force some progress on some safety issues. But overall, by the 2020’s the relationship between big tech and Governments had become adversarial – and opportunities for collaboration and rebuilding trust were few and far between.

Principles and pragmatism

Continued conflict will still sell more newspapers (and earn a few votes) – but it will not advance online safety outcomes. Online safety requires lawmakers prepared to work with industry and industry people prepared to work with lawmakers.

Civil society can play an important role enabling cooperation, providing neutral ‘venues’, and independent oversight of partnership commitments – but only if they are trusted in that role.

Managed collaboration

There are signs that many in the online safety community are keen to move on. There are a number of opportunities for multistakeholder collaboration. Although many of them struggle to be truly collaborative and instead are closely managed by one sector or group.

Managed collaboration is a natural response to the damaged trust of the last decade. It is much better than no collaboration.

In any event, the kind of work that will generate open dialogue and truly build trust is more likely to happen in smaller forums and projects. Some of those multistakeholder collaborations have launched exactly those types of workstreams, and there are many more opportunities to collaborate. There is no shortage of problems to be solved.

Moving on

There will always be a need for regulators and lawmakers prepared to go head-to-head with bad actors in the tech industry. They should be properly empowered to do so.

For the rest of the online safety community, it is time to put a commitment to online safety ahead of easy media wins – or a fear of being labelled a sell out or a crony. It’s time to put the techlash aside and to do the collaborative things that actually improve online safety outcomes.

It is time to get everybody back in the tent, and that is especially true for big tech – because that’s the only way we will actually achieve our online safety goals.