MOSafely: Building an Open-Source HCAI Community to Make the Internet a Safer Place for Youth

Abstract

The goal of this one-day workshop is to build an active community of researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers who are jointly committed to leveraging human-centered artificial intelligence (HCAI) to make the internet a safer place for youth. This community will be founded on the principles of open innovation and human dignity to address some of the most salient safety issues of modern-day internet, including online harassment, sexual solicitation, and the mental health of vulnerable internet users, particularly adolescents and young adults. We will partner with Mozilla Research Foundation to launch a new open project named "MOSafely.org,"which will serve as a platform for code library, research, and data contributions that support the mission of internet safety. During the workshop, we will discuss: 1) the types of contributions and technical standards needed to advance the state-of-the art in online risk detection, 2) the practical, legal, and ethical challenges that we will face, and 3) ways in which we can overcome these challenges through the use of HCAI to create a sustainable community. An end goal of creating the MOSafely community is to offer evidence-based, customizable, robust, and low-cost technologies that are accessible to the public for youth protection.