Safety for Whom? Investigating How Platforms Frame and Perform Safety and Harm Interventions

Abstract

This article reports on a thematic content analysis of 486 newsroom posts published between 2016 and 2021 by five prominent digital platforms (Facebook, Tinder, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter). We aimed to understand how these platforms frame and define the issues of harm and safety, and to identify the interventions they publicly report introducing to address these issues. We found that platforms respond to and draw upon external controversies and media panics to selectively construct matters of concern related to safety and harm. They then reactively propose solutions that serve as justification for further investment in and scaling up of automated, data-intensive surveillance and verification technologies. We examine four key themes in the data: locating harm with bad actors and discrete content objects (Theme 1), framing surveillance and policing as solutions to harm (Theme 2), policing “borderline” content through suppression strategies (Theme 3), and performing diversity and inclusion (Theme 4).