We recently convened members of our Trust & Safety Council at Twitter’s HQ in San Francisco for our first Trust & Safety Council Summit.
The Trust & Safety Council helps support and inform our commitment to ensuring that people feel safe expressing themselves on Twitter. It’s made up of safety advocates, academics, researchers, grassroots advocacy organizations and nonprofits focusing on a range of online safety issues - from child protection and media literacy to hate speech and gender-based harassment.
Since the Council was established in February 2016, we’ve had ongoing conversations on our products, policies and programs with our members. In particular, they provided us with invaluable feedback as we launched new policies and features, and refocused our efforts on leveraging our technology to improve safety on Twitter.
The Summit was designed to bring our partners together to provide them with further updates on the progress we’ve made and to explore how we can continue to work together to foster a safer Twitter.
35 members of the Council from 13 different countries attended across two days. We held breakout sessions dedicated to our policies, product and programs, fireside chats with Council members, and interactive workshops to focus on the complexity of the issues we face as the global conversation evolves on Twitter. The candid, constructive, and open nature of the discussions provided the perfect opportunity for our teams to listen, learn, and reflect on how we can continue to improve.
The Summit also included a fireside chat between Jack and online safety and counter-speech advocate Megan Phelps-Roper. Megan, who recently joined the Council, shared her story and discussed how the interactions she had on Twitter directly led to her seeing other perspectives, and ultimately informed her decision to leave the Westboro Baptist Church. She also shared her views on the power of empathy and counter-speech online, and even how she found her husband on Twitter. Megan’s humble articulation of why it’s vital to see every side is deeply compelling and it's a perspective that informs everything we do as a company. You can rewatch the interview here.
We look forward to continuing our work with the Trust & Safety Council as we build safer communities and show every side. A special thank you to each and every one of the Council members for their enthusiasm, candidness, and invaluable expertise. You are making our teams – and our platform – better for everyone.
Some highlights of the Summit can be found here. Follow the discussions we had and learn more about our partners at #TSCS17.
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