In search of a safer and more trustworthy internet

A coalition of digital platforms led by Google, Facebook, and Twitter recently announced a new initiative called the “Digital Trust and Safety Partnership” to share best practices designed to promote a safer and more trustworthy Internet. On the face of it, this sounds like a worthy cause — but only if these companies treat the serious issues facing consumers as an Internet safety problem instead of a PR problem.

There is cause for concern that Google, Facebook, and Twitter are just writing a new chapter in a vanity playbook that has been used for the past seven years.

The Digital Trust and Safety Partnership is the latest of a series of coalitions and partnerships that Google, Facebook, and others have created in reaction to criticism that the companies put profits ahead of Internet safety and their own customers. In 2014, for example, Google and Facebook launched its Trust in Ads coalition to “protect people from malicious online advertisements and deceptive practices.” By 2017, as we saw daily headlines about probes into Facebook and 2016 election manipulation, as well as revelations that scammers and even Jihadists relied on Google to spread propaganda to lure recruits, Trust in Ads went dormant.

We know these coalitions have not fundamentally changed the behaviors of the Internet platforms. Google and Facebook paid billions of dollars to settle claims of abusing their dominant positions in search and operating systems, violating children’s privacy laws, and unfairly favoring their own services over rivals.

Now, as the U.S. Department of Justice and nearly all state attorneys general conduct investigations into the practices of Facebook and Google, the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership is the latest foray into demonstrating that Internet trust is important. I say this with no sarcasm: I am rooting for the group to succeed. We all should.

Here’s why: Google and Facebook are not going away, although they may look different after the dust settles on the anti-trust cases brought by the DOJ and state AGs. But one way or another, these companies will remain an important part of society and the economy.

We need them to be better. And if the companies that formed the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership (besides Google, Facebook, and Twitter, other members include Microsoft, Pinterest, Reddit, Shopify, Vimeo, and Discord) are serious, here’s some actions they could take:

• Establish a cross-platform initiative to identify and ban bad actors. The program would include analyzing usage data the companies already collect to highlight behavior that is anomalous and suggests illicit, unlawful, or illegal conduct. Digital Citizens has long advocated for such an information sharing initiative, while acknowledging it will pose technical and legal challenges that will need to be addressed.
• Create digital fingerprints of unlawful conduct that are shared across platforms to proactively block such conduct, as is done with child pornography. There is also the model used by casinos to identify cheats and share that information globally. Digital platforms would then have the capability to make decisions whether to de-list or demote websites offering illicit goods and services as well as the ability to stop the spread of illegal behavior that victimizes its users.

These are just two examples of best practices that would demonstrate that these companies are serious about Internet trust and safety. But here’s the thing: these ideas are not new. Digital Citizens proposed them in 2018. Most recently, digital platforms were called out for enabling the illegal sale of steroids and being used to promote the illicit sale of coronavirus test kits and, recently, vaccine scams.

Given all these issues, there’s a legitimate reason to question whether the business model of companies such as Google and Facebook — where they give you free access in exchange for your data — is antiethical to making Internet safety a priority.

The past 12 months have shone a spotlight on the inability of Internet platforms to rise to the occasion to stamp out bad actors who rely on them to scam, spread misinformation, and organize violence. I sincerely hope the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership is a step in the right direction. But I’m certain of this: it will take much more than creating a framework for collaboration.

It’s going to take real leadership and action that, at times, will require putting responsibility over profits. It may not look as pretty as a superficial PR campaign, but it will be more impactful.

Tom Galvin is executive director of the Digital Citizens Alliance and is focused on raising awareness about issues such as piracy and malware, the illegal online sale of opioids, steroids, and other prescription drugs, and the blurring of the lines between the Dark Web and mainstream digital platforms.