Archive 28th June 2019

Your list of Online Harms to protect your users against

Leave a comment , ,

Your app/platform/website/service is a force for good, right? I’ll assume so (if it’s not, you’re on the wrong side of us, and your time is up!) because generally developers, product managers, entrepreneurs and customer services are out there to add value and delight their customers. So, you may not be planning to have to spend your scarce development effort on not just protecting your platform from cyber attack, but from protecting your users from other users and threat actors. It’s an unfortunate fact of the modern internet that bad actors are out there, and the chances are they will use your platform to attach other people.

So, your first question might be…what is it I need to safeguard my users against?

Great question, and there was a time when that mostly came down to removing profanity (bad language) and (perhaps) ensuring their was no abuse or harassment going on. Then came the widespread problem of Online Child Sexual Exploitation Online (OCSE) and (if you allow file exchange) the transferring and distribution of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM).

But it doesn’t stop there. The recent Online Harms White Paper (OHWP) identified 29 harms and describes the list as “neither exhaustive nor fixed”.

  • …advocacy of self-harm
  • …extremist content and activity
  • …promotion of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
  • —etc (29 at the moment…)

But identifying online harms and coming up with mitigations is not your day job, so how we thought we would make your life a lot easier. Step 1 was to creat a place where you could see the full list of identified harms, with (some sort of!)* definition.

That’s why we have release the Online Harms Catalogue

This is only a start of the resources we plan to provide to make your life easier in providing a great technology response.

We’re happy to work with you to provide mitigations for all of these. Some will be technology, some will be process and others may simply be a tweak in your policy, but we believe that knowing what you need to guard against is the first step in providing a response.

Do get in touch if we can help you.

Is this the only Content Moderation Catalogue on the Internet?

Leave a comment , , , ,

We’re passionate about making the internet a safer place for people, but we’re not in the business of Social Media, Chat or Content. But what if you are?

We have pulled together what we think is the most complete and current catalogue of Content Moderation companies on the internet. So if you’re a developer and looking for a service to make your site or app a safer place, then head over to the Content Moderation app store and let us know what you think.

If you provide a Content Moderation Service, then why not get in touch and either add or edit your listing?

Please go ahead and spread the word.

Online Harms

Leave a comment , , ,

The (reasonably) recent release of the UK government’s Online Harms White Paper (OHWP) brought with it some interesting (and somewhat) helpful positions about online harms.

Why should you care?

Well, we think it matters for two reasons.

(1) The OHWP lays out the direction for Government (and hence points towards the sort of regulatory things that might impact businesses) and

(2) It has the input of a decent number of people with experience in this area, and so acts as a good reference point.

But there’s one area that we found particularly important to look at, and that was the categorisation of Online Harms. There’s a couple of take away points here that we think should be raised:

  1. It recognises that the list is not exhaustive and is expected to evolve over time
  2. It de-scopes some things that, whilst there is still a requirement for businesses to protect against, the OHWP feels is out of scope.

The first is the most important we think. For us, it is a ringing endorsement of our approach and thinking. Many other companies have taken (either deliberately or as a result of their legacy) an approach that focuses on CSEA or CSAM and may have built some other protection mechanisms in. We have always started from the position of understanding ALL online harms and focusing on protection against all.

This government recognition of the full suite of harms (and that it is constantly evolving) helps you start thinking about your Online Harm protection plan. Time to stop thinking just about Safeguarding or CSEA, but thinking more holistically about Online Harms.

So what are these harms?

  • Online CSEA
  • Terrorist content
  • Illegal upload from prisons
  • Gang culture and incitement to serious violence
  • Sale of illegal goods & services e.g. drugs & weapons
  • Organised immigration crime
  • Modern slavery
  • Extreme pornography
  • Revenge pornography
  • Hate Crime
  • Cyber bullying and trolling
  • Advocacy of self-harm
  • Encouraging or assisting suicide
  • Sexting of indecent images by under 18s
  • Self Generate Indecent Imagery (SGII)
  • Online dis-information
  • Harassment & cyberstalking
  • Intimidation
  • Extremist content and activity
  • Coercive behaviour
  • Violent Content
  • Promotion of FGM
  • Children accessing pornography
  • Children accessing inappropriate material
  • Online manipulation
  • Interference with legal proceedings

Clearly, it’s unlikely that you will have a plan, or measures in place to address all of these, but do you think it’s worth getting in touch with someone that can help you? If you want some help making head or tail of this, get in touch.

Best

Matt

Subscribe

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from SUPS | Safe Users and Platform Services:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp’s privacy practices here.