The Trust & Safety Teaching Consortium (TSTC) is a coalition of academic, industry and non-profit experts launched in 2023. Trust & Safety is an emerging field that focuses on reducing the harm from interpersonal abuse in digital spaces. Our goal is to create and share educational material that can be used to teach a variety of audiences about trust and safety issues in a wide variety of formats.
Please find below a curriculum composed of 13 slide decks with associated readings, cases, and exercises. These can be freely reused, with credit.
The teaching content we created covers sensitive topics, and instructors should carefully review materials before assigning them. Instructors should consider what content warnings they want to apply and what content might not be appropriate for their audience.
Please note that modules are updated sporadically; review the date on the deck when using.
Modules are associated with this reading list
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Introduction to Trust and Safety (Google Slides - fall 2023) (Latex Slides - summer 2023 (Full-Course Exercise)
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Governments and the Internet (Google Slides - Jan 2024) (Latex Slides - summer 2023)
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Metrics and Measurement (Google Slides - fall 2023) (Latex Slides - summer 2023) (Exercises)
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Content Moderation (Google Slides - spring 2024) (Google Slides - fall 2023) (Latex Slides) (Exercises) (Short Case Video / Associated Lesson Plan)
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Information Environment (Google Slides) (Latex Slides)
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Terrorism, Radicalization, and Extremism (Google Slides - fall 2023) (Latex Slides - summer 2023) (Exercises)
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Harassment and Hate Speech (Google Slides - Jan 2024) (Latex Slides - summer 2023) (Exercises)
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Child and Adult Sexual Exploitation (Google Slides) (Exercises) (Short case video)
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Suicide, Self-Harm, and Well-Being (Google Slides - fall 2023) (Exercises)
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Authentication, Identity, and Platform Manipulation (Google Slides) (Exercises)
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Types of Attack Surfaces (Google Slides, with a focus on cybersecurity - fall 2023) (Google Slides - spring 2023) (Exercises)
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Emerging Technologies and Career Advice (Google Slides - Jan 2024) (Exercises) (Latex Slides - last updated summer 2023)
We actively welcome contributions. Digital safety educators and professionals can join the Trust & Safety Teaching Consortium as a member or an affiliate.
Members have taught or prepared material for at least one 60-minute T&S class in higher education or industry in the past five years or have concrete plans to do so in the next 12 months. Members are expected to contribute to at least one module in the TSTC curriculum a year. Members can join quarterly virtual meetings of the TSTC and be elected to the TSTC Steering Committee. Members get full access to any gated material and can engage with each other through our dedicated Google Group.
TSTC Members are coordinated by a steering committee currently composed of Alex Stamos, Alexios Mantzarlis, Laura McLester, and Marten Risius. We are grateful to all contributors and in particular to Shelby Grossman for her work getting TSTC started.
Affiliates are more loosely interested in Trust & Safety teaching and would like to receive updates from the TSTC / potentially become a member down the road. Affiliates must either be instructors in a higher education setting, be employed in a T&S role across industry or civil society, or have previously been employed in a T&S role for at least 4 years.
To apply to join the TSTC as either a member or an affiliate, please fill this form. For any questions about the consortium or to let us know about how you used the curriculum, please email am3368@cornell.edu and trustandsafetyjournal@stanford.edu.
This material has been submitted by TSTC members or other contributors. It may be outdated.
Trust & Safety course descriptions
- Critical Algorithm Studies, TU Wien
- Digital Safety, University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Disinformation in the Age of AI, Yale
- Information Integrity, Stanford
- Trust and Safety Engineering, Stanford
- Trust & Safety Engineering and Practice, KAIST
- Trust and Safety: Platforms, Policies, Products, Cornell Tech
Submitted material:
- Introduction day slide deck from Kevin Aslett (University of Central Florida) for Politics of Online Security
- Undergraduate syllabus and graduate syllabus from Laura McLester (University of Alabama at Birmingham) for Digital Safety
- Slide deck for lecture on investigations and intelligence from Laura McLester (University of Alabama at Birmingham) for Digital Safety
- Slide deck for lecture on hate speech and harassment from Laura McLester (University of Alabama at Birmingham) for Digital Safety
- Syllabus from Jospeh Seering (KAIST) for Trust and Safety Engineering
- Slide deck for lecture on community moderation from Jospeh Seering (KAIST) for Trust and Safety Engineering
Material associated with the curriculum (adapted slide decks, video lectures, etc):
- Copyright Safe Harbors and the DMCA by Justin Francese (University of Oregon)
- 20 minute lecture on intelligence in trust and safety by Inbal Goldberger, ActiveFence
- Short Case Video on discrimination by Sabrina Pascoe
- 16 minute lecture on Australia's eSafety Commissioner
- 45 minute lecture on misinformation by Sarah Shirazyan, Stanford Law School
- 30 minute lecture on terrorism, radicalization, and extremism by Marten Risius, University of Queensland)
- 25 minute lecture on online hate speech by Mark Schneider, University of Pennsylvania]
- 45 minute lecture on suicide, self-harm, and well-being from Katherine Keyes, Columbia University)
Other
- Trust and Safety Curriculum from the Trust & Safety Professional Association
- Trust & Safety Tycoon - a game created by Mike Masnick]