I am excited to announce that Family Online Safety Institute has partnered with YouTube to develop the new Creator Safety Center. Our partnership focuses on safety and advises how every creator can keep themselves safe from the potential dangers that come with publishing public content. It is great to see YouTube prioritize the well-being of their users in order to encourage a more fun and inclusive environment.
Creators of all ages are susceptible to unpleasant interactions when sharing personal stories and information online, so introducing the Creator Safety Center is important in empowering users to take control over their YouTube experience with a step-by-step process of how to deal with these encounters.
In addition to security and safety expert insights, the Creator Safety Center also incorporates advice from fellow creators who are willing to lead the way for others to have a positive experience. Protecting all users starts with recognizing the disproportionately harmful experiences of minority groups, such as women, non-binary, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) creators and making sure the proper guidance and safety tools are available and easy to use.
This new feature creates a culture of responsibility that combines the efforts of platforms and users themselves, aligning with the work we have done here at FOSI. The Creator Safety Center provides creators with a plan to protect themselves from unwanted behavior online that can often feel inevitable and invasive.
Setting up two-factor authentication or reporting dangerous activity are examples of simple steps users can take to promote a safer community of creators. That’s just a start, and I encourage everyone to learn more about a wide range of proactive online safety tips today at youtube.com/creator/safety.
For the past 30 years, Stephen Balkam has had a wide range of leadership roles in the nonprofit sector in both the US and UK. He is currently the Founder and CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), an international, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, DC. FOSI’s mission is to make the online world safer for kids and their families. FOSI convenes the top thinkers and practitioners in government, industry and the nonprofit sectors to collaborate and innovate and to create a “culture of responsibility” in the online world.
Prior to FOSI, Stephen was the Founder and CEO of the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) and led a team which developed the world’s leading content labeling system on the web. While with ICRA, Stephen served on the US Child Online Protection Commission (COPA) in 2000 and was named one of the Top 50 UK Movers and Shakers, Internet Magazine, 2001.
In 1994, Stephen was named the first Executive Director of the Recreational Software Advisory Council (RSAC) which created a unique self-labeling system for computer games and then, in 1996, Stephen launched RSACi – a forerunner to the ICRA website labeling system. For his efforts in online safety, Stephen was given the 1998 Carl Bertelsmann Prize in Gutersloh, Germany, for innovation and responsibility in the Information Society and was invited to the first and subsequent White House Internet Summits during the Clinton Administration.
Stephen’s other positions include the Executive Director of the National Stepfamily Association (UK); General Secretary of the Islington Voluntary Action Council; Executive Director of Camden Community Transport as well as management positions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London) and Inter-Action. Stephen’s first job was with Burroughs Machines (now Unisys) and he had a spell working for West Nally Ltd – a sports sponsorship PR company.
Stephen received a BA, magna cum laude, in Psychology from University College, Cardiff, Wales in 1977. A native of Washington, DC, Stephen spent many years in the UK and is now has dual citizenship. He writes regularly for the Huffington Post, appears often on TV and has appeared on nationally syndicated TV and radio programs such as MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC and has been interviewed by leading newspapers such as the Washington Post, New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, radio and in the mainstream press. He has given presentations and spoken in 15 countries on 4 continents.
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