Creating Safe Digital Spaces

Digital spaces created by modern day platforms have come to shape the way we connect today and live as a global community. However, with their increasing roles in our lives, it is becoming more and more evident that they also come with a new set of risks of harm. In this chapter, we look at how these harms can be mitigated to create digitally safe spaces. We argue that platforms need to make changes at the institutional design level rather than just police content. We first propose a framework to categorize digital harm, based on its nature and scope. Then, we develop a multi-layered sociotechnical model to analyze both the sources of harm and the points of intervention (at the micro, meso and macro level). This is followed by a discussion on key challenges and trade-offs that the platform leaders and policymakers face. Overall, the chapter presents a new framework for understanding how digital safety can be embedded into the very foundation of platforms-shifting the focus from reactive responses to proactive design.