Case Studies
The TSF Case Studies are a series of real-life examples of trust and safety issues. Each case study demonstrates how difficult it is to make trust and safety decisions and discusses the trade-offs inherent in each decision or setup, prompting readers to think about the questions raised by the case study and consider the implications and outcomes.
These case studies may be helpful as a training tool as they examine past examples that resonate with current challenges. TSF publishes case studies in an effort to form an ongoing repository of trust and safety examples providing deeper insight for the broader public.
The case studies are written by TSF staff, volunteer and paid writers, and The Copia Institute.
Featured Case Studies
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Cloudflare and The Daily Stormer: Content Moderation Meets the Stack
Summary: In 2017, Cloudflare, a web infrastructure and website security company, came under media scrutiny for hosting a U.S. based, self-proclaimed neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer. Despite numerous complaints to […]
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Takedowns on YouTube skyrocket during pandemic as AI replaces human moderators (2020)
Summary: YouTube has always faced an uphill battle when it comes to content moderation. A decade ago, the job was impossible to handle with only human moderators. According to stats […]
All Case Studies
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Electric truck company uses copyright claims to hide criticism (2020)
Summary: There are many content moderation challenges that companies face, but complications arise when users or companies try to make use of copyright law as a tool to block criticism. […]
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Linkedin blocks access to journalist profiles in China (2021)
Summary: A major challenge for global internet companies is figuring how to deal with different rules and regulations within different countries. This has proven especially difficult for internet companies looking […]
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Tumblr’s approach to adult content (2013)
Summary: There are unique challenges in handling adult content on a website, whether it’s an outright ban, selectively allowed, cordoned off under content warnings, or (in some cases) actively encouraged.Tumblr’s […]
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Snapchat disables GIPHY integration after racist “sticker” is discovered (2018)
Summary: Snapchat debuted to immediate success a decade ago, drawing in millions of users with its playful take on instant messaging that combined photos and short videos with a large […]
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Apple faces backlash against a new CSAM detection system (2021)
Summary: Apple announced on August 5, 2021 that it would introduce three new child safety features in its upcoming iOS 15 update in the United States. These features are intended to help protect […]
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Twitter’s self-deleting tweets feature creates new moderation problems (2020)
Summary: In its 15 years as a micro-blogging service, Twitter has given users more characters per tweet, reaction GIFs, multiple UI options, and the occasional random resorting of their timelines. […]
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Coca Cola realizes custom bottle labels involve moderation issues (2021)
Summary: Content moderation questions can come from all sorts of unexpected places — including custom soda bottle labels. Over the years, Coca Cola has experimented with a variety of different […]
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Bing search results erases images of ‘Tank Man’ on anniversary of Tiananmen Square crackdown (2021)
Summary: On the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, internet users noticed Microsoft’s Bing search engine was producing some interesting results. Or, rather, it wasn’t producing expected search results for […]
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Twitter removes “verified” badge in response to policy violations (2017)
Summary: Many social networks have enabled users to use a pseudonym as their identity on that network. Since users could use whatever name they wanted, they could pretend to be […]
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Spam “Hacks” in Among Us (2020)
Summary: From August to October of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic had no end in sight and plenty of people were still stuck at home, on lockdown, unable to gather […]
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YouTube deals with disturbing content disguised as videos for kids (2017)
Summary: YouTube offers an endless stream of videos that cater to the preferences of users, no matter their age and has become a go-to content provider for kids and their […]
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BoingBoing Begins Disemvoweling The Trolls (2007)
Summary: One of the challenges for any website that allows for user content — no matter the size of the website — is how to deal with trollish behavior. There […]