Trust and safety is slowly but steadily emerging in the United States as an independent field of study and practice. Several initiatives—such as the recent Glossary of Trust and Safety Terms issued by the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership (DTSP)—are attempting to lay the groundwork for a common language among researchers, corporate officials, and practitioners who routinely take part in a set of practices designed to manage the way some internet services are used. A set of normative goals are embedded in the field itself. This paper critically analyzes these processes so far to pose a series of questions regarding the boundaries of trust and safety as a practice and a field of inquiry, particularly in Latin America. Our main argument is that trust and safety favors safety over competing normative goals and principles, potentially altering and shaping human rights online. This trend is problematic from a human rights perspective, a point that we develop by focusing on Latin American human rights standards. We conclude with a proposal to reshape trust and safety in ways that embrace human rights standards as a countervailing commitment that, while difficult to make from a business-centered perspective, may increase the legitimacy of the practice overall.

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