DAISY SODERBERG-RIVKIN: Most of what we hear about are the negative impacts of social media and gaming. I think that the media has thrown a lot of information at people about how the internet is going to ruin their kids. The scare tactics have been intense. That’s not to say I don’t agree with a lot of them. There are definitely risks, just as much as there are risks in the real world. Sometimes, it’s nice to look at the positives for a change. Great things also come from using the internet. From an educational perspective, you have easy access to academic material online. From a social perspective, you have access to people who are from every corner of the world. The ability for children to speak to someone from another country and get a different cultural perspective is incredible. Think of Covid-19! Kids were able to continue going to school, despite schools closing physically on a global scale. There are so many positive impacts. That’s not to shadow the negative side of things, of course. But it goes back to that question of what is possible and what is enough? When thinking of when the internet was created and social media companies followed suit, I think of the phrase ‘you can’t put the toothpaste back into the tube’. It’s out there. Often parents say, ‘why don’t you just ask social media companies to remove all of the danger?’ and I turn back to them and say, ‘how do you propose we do that?’. The government will come to you and say: ‘remove all nudity, remove all bad words’ etc. Then I say, ‘well, there will be nothing left’. You have to think, all these efforts are being done by many different mechanisms. As I said, it takes a village of content moderators, AI age verification mechanisms, all sorts of things. But these are still being worked on. They haven’t been perfected – and they won’t ever be perfect because our definition of what’s good and bad will always change. There will always be a new issue. FEED: There’s a lot of focus on the negatives online. What are the positives?
DAISY SODERBERG-RIVKIN: With the metaverse, the first thing that came to mind was a sense of PTSD, of the time when we first dealt with livestream videos. That lack of control when something is happening in real time, and you might not be able to stop it. The safety concern lies with the fact there’s less control when something is happening in real time. It’s also scary in the sense that no one has actually defined what it is. There are many definitions out there, none of which are unanimous. FEED: Should we have safety concerns when it comes to the metaverse?
“NO ONE HAS ACTUALLY DEFINED WHAT THE METAVERSE IS”
FEED: Any advice for someone who wants to enter your profession?
DAISY SODERBERG-RIVKIN: I would start by saying it’s not for the light-hearted. It’s a job for people who can operate under pressure and make quick decisions, but also keep in touch with things that are always happening around the world.
A lot of people ask what they need to study to go into trust and safety? I honestly think anyone can work in this field. Trust and safety is full of lawyers, engineers, policy offers, economists, doctors, the list goes on. The internet isn’t going away. We need the same institutions we have in the real world, online. This is as well as making sure we can regulate and move forward as a society within the online world as best as possible.
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