As global social media use continues to expand, users expect their social media platforms to maintain a safe online user environment. Live social discovery app Yubo is at the forefront of these efforts.
This Paris-based company employs multiple technological tools and human Safety Specialists to proactively address emerging safety issues.
Yubo’s Transparency Report, covering January through June 2023, details every facet of the company’s intensive user safety program. In this October 2023 report, Yubo focuses on the initiative’s five core components.
The Yubo “Safety by Design” Approach
Established in 2015, Yubo is a leader in the proactive “Safety by Design” methodology. This approach is the foundation of the platform’s trust and safety framework. To begin, Yubo’s leaders meet the required legal obligations. The company’s support team quickly responds to user inquiries and invites user reports.
However, Yubo doesn’t stop there. Company leaders firmly believe that transparent communication about the outcomes of inappropriate platform behavior is important. With this message in place, there should be fewer safety risks that need mitigation.
User empowerment and personal harm prevention are the goals. To achieve them,
Yubo employs the latest technology and proprietary algorithms to quickly identify behaviors that could result in Community Guidelines violations. These behaviors could also lead to inappropriate content posts or user actions on the platform.
Yubo believes that educating its users is a key component of the platform’s user engagement philosophy. By keeping users well informed, each community member can be held accountable for their online actions. Ideally, they will also be increasingly responsible about overall online safety.
Yubo’s Overarching Community Guidelines
The Yubo Community Guidelines are the gold standard for the platform’s acceptable content types and behavior. Users must accept these guidelines during the sign-up process, and they receive a reminder when first using a new feature.
The Community Guidelines also anchor Yubo’s safety strategy. Collectively, the Guidelines communicate the company’s values, respect for other users’ well-being and opinions, and respect for law.
Yubo strives to uphold these rules in every platform interaction. If a user reports behavior that violates the Community Guidelines, Yubo will take immediate action to protect its user community.
Yubo’s Trust and Safety Initiative
Yubo’s commitment to online user safety has spurred the creation of its unifying Trust and Safety Initiative. Eight specialized teams, and nine corresponding measures, together form the framework for Yubo’s safety strategy.
Eight Trust and Safety Teams
Each specially trained Yubo team handles a specific trust and safety function. All teams can easily access outside resources as needed.
Abusive Behavior Response Team
This team is focused on keeping Yubo a friendly, respectful community. To achieve this mission, the team responds to user reports and monitors AI detection flags regarding abusive behavior or content. Examples include harassment and bullying.
High Risk and Emergency Response Team
This team responds to user reports and analyzes AI detection flags for high-risk or possible emergency situations. When necessary, this team actively works with law enforcement authorities across the globe.
Integrity Team
This team is committed to enforcing Yubo’s age-gating policy. They also seek to prevent harmful situations including identity abuse and potential child enticement. To achieve these goals, the team evaluates suspicious behavior reported by users and/or flagged by the company’s proprietary technology.
Law Enforcement Team
This team works with law enforcement authorities on diverse issues. Examples include illegal activity reports, information and preservation requests, and emergency situation resolution.
Product Safety Team
This team creates safety tools that collectively empower the Yubo community to feel safe and respected.
Safety Engineering Team
These expert computer professionals develop the safety team’s targeted technical tools. The safety engineering team also designs and implements technology in support of Yubo’s proactive safety detection efforts.
Safety Policy Team
This team formulates and drafts all Yubo safety guidelines and policies. These policies include the Community Guidelines.
Support Team
Working through the Help Center, this team handles issues or concerns reported by users, parents, educators, or caretakers. The team also addresses complaints and appeals on privacy requests and moderation decisions.
Yubo strives to respond to routine reports in less than 24 hours. A livestream-sourced report ideally receives a response in less than two minutes. High-risk profiles warrant a response in under 30 minutes.
Trust and Safety Tactics
Yubo’s continued focus on platform safety spurred the company’s Trust and Safety Initiative. This sustained effort involves nine key components.
Identity and Age Verification
In mid/late 2022, Yubo became the first major social media platform to launch age estimation technology applicable to all users. If users cannot pass the age estimation process, they may be required to provide a government-issued ID.
This platform-wide requirement can better keep those with malicious intent from joining Yubo. In turn, users can feel more confident about others with whom they interact on the Yubo platform.
Age Gating Framework
Yubo requires users to be 13 years of age (or older). The platform uses age gates to separate certain communities and minimize interaction between users with a substantial age gap (e.g. teens and adults). Yubo’s goal is to create a place for users to socialize with similar-aged individuals.
Issue Resolution Policies
Yubo’s internal policies provide guidance on how to handle behavior- and content-related issues. The policies also provide structure for moderators. This helps to ensure that safety risks are addressed in a consistent manner that adheres to industry best practices.
Technological Tools
Yubo’s automated tools complement user reports. Together, these mechanisms help to identify perhaps undiscovered suspicious platform activities. The technological tools can also remove harmful content before it’s published, making the methodology especially useful for Yubo’s live-streaming feature.
Human Moderator Actions
Yubo’s human moderators address user reports, prioritizing them by risks and seriousness. The moderators also evaluate detection technologies’ signals. Finally, moderators may take real-time action to stop unacceptable behavior. Conversely, they may react to already-posted user content.
Detection and Moderation Accuracy
Through quality analyses, Yubo gauges its detection and moderation accuracy. Continuous improvement in policy enforcement is the ongoing goal.
Moderator Responses
If a user breaches Yubo’s Terms of Service or Community Guidelines, moderators can respond in several ways. First, the moderator educates the user on why certain content or conduct is not allowed on the platform. Moderators may also provide users with appropriate resources.
If a breach occurs, limiting of certain features, or a temporary or permanent device ban, may take place. Account verification for suspicion of fraudulent activity, or account referral to law enforcement, may occur in certain cases.
Grooming/Child Enticement Detection
Yubo has launched technologies and processes to identify suspicious behaviors that could present a risk to minor users. In suspected grooming cases, Yubo conducts a detailed investigation and takes appropriate action. This includes evaluating and removing harmful, otherwise inappropriate, or illegal content. The poster’s account will also be permanently blocked, and law enforcement may also be notified.
User Empowerment
Every Yubo user can report potentially inappropriate content and account use. Users can block accounts accordingly. Finally, Yubo users can block certain textual content (including emojis) they do not want to view or receive.
Safety Advocacy
Yubo’s three-part safety advocacy program involves partnerships with key stakeholders. Together, these entities help to promote users’ online safety and personal well-being.
Mutually Beneficial Partnerships
Since its inception, Yubo has maintained loose partnerships with government agencies, non-governmental organizations (or NGOs), charities, and other relevant groups. The common goal: to promote better online safety and help ensure users’ well-being.
Yubo’s partners include the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (or NCMEC) Thorn, e-Enfance, and two INHOPE Network members. Yubo also participates in the Tech Coalition and the ICT Coalition. In multiple local jurisdictions, Yubo conducts in-app safety awareness initiatives that touch on timely topics such as mental health and bullying.
The Yubo Safety Hub
Yubo’s Safety Hub is a one-stop destination for education, prevention, and transparency resources. Users and/or their parents can read advice on certain issues and become acquainted with Yubo’s policies and safety tools.
Audience-specific guides address online platform safety best practices. Targeted guides are available for young users, their parents, educators, and caretakers. A law enforcement guide has also been prepared.
The Yubo Safety Board
Yubo’s Safety Board includes leading global experts on digital safety and similar topics. Besides providing informed opinions on specific issues, the Safety Board issues ongoing guidance on policies and practices.
Annie Mullins OBE is Yubo’s Chief Safety Advisor. In the role since 2016, she has over 15 years of experience in fine-tuning industry best practices. Annie Mullins OBE has two key functions. First, she helps to design Yubo’s safety strategy. She also uses her vast network to help Yubo build connections with governments, NGOs, and relevant industry groups.
Law Enforcement Collaborations
Yubo’s law enforcement collaborations support the company’s safety strategy. First, Yubo executes its legal duties in two ways. Yubo offers users a simple, fast system to report anything illegal or suspicious on the platform.
In addition, Yubo always cooperates with relevant authorities in reporting illegal activities and assisting in investigations. During 2023’s first half, for example, Yubo proactively completed reports to 56 countries’ law enforcement authorities.
Police Requests
The Law Enforcement Outreach Team fields these requests. 99% of law enforcement requests are addressed in less than 24 hours.
Proactive Reports
Yubo proactively reports imminent user safety risks and illegal activities to law enforcement and other appropriate organizations. Emergency reports are also prioritized. These include self-harm, possible suicidal intentions, violence or shooting threat, extremist behavior, or terrorism.
Yubo also reported drug dealing, scamming, blackmailing, extremist behavior, and terrorist content cases to PHAROS (France’s police platform regarding illegal online content). PHAROS sends non-French information to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.
Child-related Cases
From January through June 2023, the Yubo Law Enforcement Outreach Team reported child sexual abuse materials and exploitation along with child grooming cases.
Yubo made 1375 child sexual exploitation and abuse reports to NCMEC. These reports pertained to incidents occurring in the United States and Canada.
Law Enforcement Partnerships
Yubo continues to cultivate good working relationships with law enforcement authorities and other relevant groups. This includes a collaboration with the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (or FBI), the recipient of reports for US-related emergency incidents.
Yubo’s Enduring Commitment to Users’ Online Safety and Well-Being
As Yubo’s Transparency Report showed, the platform’s leaders are wholeheartedly committed to providing users with a safe interactive environment. Toward this end,
Yubo continues to refine its five Safety Strategy pillars. The company consistently works with its Safety Board to ensure that the business’ actions reflect current industry trends and priorities.
by Irfan Ahmad via Digital Information World
