In 2021, PEN America published a report, No Excuse for Abuse, mapping out the ways social media companies could better protect and support users facing online abuse. One of the report’s core recommendations was to treat online abuse more like spam by empowering individual users with features or settings that allow them to proactively filter out and quarantine potentially abusive content. They could then decide for themselves when and if to interact with that content, or even delegate its review to a trusted third party.
Today, Consumer Reports (CR) and PEN America are releasing a new report building on this concept and calling on social media platforms to fundamentally rethink how they address online abuse. Current approaches are largely reactive, requiring users to address abuse by blocking or reporting it, often only after repeated exposure. This new approach would equip users with more flexible and customizable tools to protect themselves from harassment while still protecting free expression.
The report was co-authored by myself, Deepak Kumar, assistant professor of Computer Science and Engineering at University of California San Diego, and Viktorya Vilk, director of digital safety and free expression at PEN America.
Please reach out to me if you have any feedback at yael.grauer@consumer.org.
