With 63% of the world’s population online, the internet is a mirror of society: it speaks all languages, contains every opinion and hosts a wide range of (sometimes unsavoury) individuals.
As the internet has evolved, so has the dark world of online harms. Trust and safety teams (the teams typically found within online platforms responsible for removing abusive content and enforcing platform policies) are challenged by an ever-growing list of abuses, such as child abuse, extremism, disinformation, hate speech and fraud; and increasingly advanced actors misusing platforms in unique ways.
The solution, however, is not as simple as hiring another roomful of content moderators or building yet another block list. Without a profound familiarity with different types of abuse, an understanding of hate group verbiage, fluency in terrorist languages and nuanced comprehension of disinformation campaigns, trust and safety teams can only scratch the surface.