First Trust & Safety Forum: a cohesive space open to all stakeholders

Trust & Safety is about identifying and treating harmful and illegal content, but also about inappropriate and biased content (“fake news”), cyber threats (phishing and other types of abuse) and fraud (payment fraud, ID theft etc.). In the last fifteen years, most of these dimensions have been dealt with within FIC, the International Cybersecurity Conference. The T&SF is a new and necessary component of the FIC conference, with a full day of roundtables, interviews and pitches.

The objectives of the Trust & Safety Forum are straightforward:

• Bring together the diversity of stakeholders (from platforms to regulators, including trusted flaggers, law enforcement, solution providers and NGOs) that make our digital environment safer.
• Strengthen the efficiency of operational cooperation between these stakeholders, so innovation in policies and technology get noticed and implemented.
• Establish Trust & Safety as a discipline in its own right, as it redefines itself in next ten years based on a new set of regulations in the EU, UK, USA, Australia…

The inaugural edition of the T&SF takes place at a unique moment, unprecedented in the last two decades, with a wave of new regulations under preparation, from the upcoming Digital Services Act in the EU to the review of the Earn.it Act in the US and the German Interstate Treaty on Youth Media protection, the German Youth Protection Act (2021), recent French laws on manipulation of information (2018) and against hate (2020), the Online Safety Bill in the UK or the Online Safety Act 2021 in Australia.

Beyond the multiplicity of initiatives, from the Christchurch Call Advisory Network, INHOPE and Insafe, to the WeProtect Global Alliance, there is a common pattern and thinking: no one can solve the problem on its own. No one has all the answers. So, first thing first, we all need to get the big picture. For the Trust & Safety community itself, but also for those – the many – who are unfamiliar with the richness and opportunities this new discipline provides.

The T&SF will address the future, which is due to start in 2023, when the new regulatory frameworks will be enforced: the impact of the Digital Services Act and the UK Online Safety Bill, the necessity of safety by design, the consequences of the metaverse, this is tomorrow, not after tomorrow. But the Forum will not overlook today’s challenges: aren’t we overwhelmed already by actionable data, reports and reporting mechanisms? Do we provide today with the right support to victims of online abuse, in particular children?

The T&SF is cofounded by Guillaume Tissier, Director of FIC since 2013, and Jean-Christophe Le Toquin who brings 25 years of experience in building and strengthening collaborative initiatives for a safer digital world. The core team includes Jean-Christophe as coordinator, Caroline Humer, global child protection expert, and Roxanne Ferreira, in charge of partnerships.

For any enquiries, please reach out to [email protected]