ByMia Quagliarello

The fediverse offers an opportunity to rethink how trust and safety works in social media. In a decentralized environment, creating safe and welcoming places relies on community moderation, transparent governance, and innovation in tooling. No longer is one company making — and enforcing — its own rules. It’s a collective responsibility.

What does this look like in practical terms? What threats are still top of mind for trust and safety experts? What is the next step toward realizing this future, particularly in this robust election year?

Samantha Lai, senior research analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Jaz-Michael King, the executive director of IFTAS, are here to explain. Samantha co-authored a seminal paper, “Securing Federated Platforms: Collective Risks and Responses,” along with Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth. Jaz runs IFTAS, which offers trust and safety support for volunteer content moderators, community managers, admins and more. The two often collaborate and bring perspectives from the policy and operational sides. 

Highlights of this conversation:

  • Moderation approaches in the fediverse
  • Role of IFTAS
  • Is moderation better in the fediverse?
  • Collective intel and resources
  • Scaling with AI tools and tooling overall

We invite you to watch the podcast on Flipboard’s PeerTube instance at flipboard.video: 

Please follow us on PeerTube if you aren’t already. When you do, the videos become available via any other platform connected by ActivityPub. (It’s basically like having your YouTube, X and Instagram feeds and comments in one central, interoperable home feed. This is the beauty and the power of decentralized social media!)

You can find Dot Social on Flipboard, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, YouTube, anywhere else you might listen to podcasts.

We will continue to bring you new episodes with fascinating fediverse leaders as we record them. The best way to never miss an episode is to subscribe to the show. Please also rate, review, comment and share, especially if you like what you hear. 

See you in the fediverse!

— Mia Quagliarello, head of creator community, is reading Simone Biles