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But much of Oasis’s plans remain idealistic at best. One example is the proposal to use machine learning to detect harassment and hate speech. As my colleague Karen Hao report Last year, AI models either gave hate speech too much opportunity to spread, or crossed the line. Still, Wang defends Oasis’ promotion of AI as a moderating tool. “Artificial intelligence is as good as data,” she said. “Platforms share different auditing practices, but all strive to achieve better accuracy, faster response, and safety by designing for prevention.”
The document itself is seven pages long and outlines the coalition’s future goals. Much of it reads like a mission statement, and Wang says the first few months of work have focused on creating advisory groups to help set goals.
Other elements of the program, such as its content moderation policy, are vague. Wang said she wants companies to hire diverse content moderators so they can understand and combat harassment of people of color and non-males. But the plan provides no further steps towards that goal.
The alliance will also expect member companies to share data on which users have been misused, which is important for identifying repeat offenders. Participating tech companies will work with nonprofits, government agencies and law enforcement to help shape security policy, Wang said. She also plans to have Oasis set up a law enforcement response team whose job it is to report incidents of harassment and abuse to police.but still not clear how The task force’s cooperation with law enforcement will be different from the status quo.
Balancing Privacy and Security
Despite the lack of specifics, experts I spoke to believe the alliance’s standards document is at least a good first step. “Oasis is looking at self-regulation, and it’s a good thing to start with people who understand the system and its limitations,” said Brittan Heller, a lawyer specializing in technology and human rights.
This isn’t the first time tech companies have collaborated in this way. In 2017, some agreed to freely exchange information with the Global Internet Counter-Terrorism Forum. Today, GIFCT remains independent and the companies that sign it up regulate themselves.
Lucy Sparrow, a researcher at the University of Melbourne’s School of Computing and Information Systems, said Oasis’ goal was to give companies something to collaborate on, rather than wait for them to come up with the language themselves or wait for a third party to do the work.
Sparrow added that it is admirable to incorporate ethics into the design from the start, as Oasis has driven, and her research on multiplayer systems shows that this can have an impact. “Morals are often pushed aside, but here they [Oasis] Encourage people to think about ethics from the start,” she said.
But Heller said ethical design may not be enough. She suggested tech companies retool their terms of service, which have been heavily criticized for taking advantage of consumers without legal expertise.
Sparrow agreed, saying she was reluctant to trust a group of tech companies to act in the best interests of consumers. “It does raise two questions,” she said. “One, how much do we trust capital-driven companies to control security? Two, how much control do we want tech companies to have over our virtual lives?”
This is a tricky situation, especially since users have security and privacy rights, but those needs can be stressful.
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