Integrity Institute Releases 2023 Annual Report
Report celebrates the Institute’s impact and achievements in 2023, our first year as an independent nonprofit
2023 was an important year for the Integrity Institute to prove itself and its model to the world. The industry downturn that began in late 2022 continued, and we saw hundreds, maybe thousands, of integrity, trust and safety professionals being laid off. We saw platforms eliminating free API access that had powered years of research. And we saw platforms announcing that they no longer saw value in political and news discourse, in the lead up to a year where more than half of humanity would be voting no less. 2023 presented challenges to both our profession and the Integrity Institute’s larger goal of building a social internet that helps people, societies, and democracies thrive. I am proud of the essential role the Integrity Institute played in responding to these challenges, and I continue to remain optimistic about the future of the profession and of the social internet.
When a tech worker is laid off from a job on an integrity or trust and safety team, not only are they cut off from a fulfilling role, they are also cut off from their community of colleagues that was doing the work with them. The Integrity Institute has become a key place for integrity workers to reconnect with their previous community and find the larger community that exists beyond any one company. In our new member onboarding sessions, surprise reunions are very common. And our members are supporting each other during this industry downturn. Our jobs board is very active and helps people find roles they are passionate about. The Integrity Institute is also a place for people to explore options outside of the typical big tech companies. Our members are helping each other explore the world of consulting, government and the public sector, and civil society organizations. The Integrity Institute is now an onboarding path to many alternative ways our members can have a positive impact on the social internet.
2023 was a landmark year in social internet regulation (as we predicted): we saw both the Digital Services Act (DSA) pass in the EU and the Online Safety Act pass in the UK, and numerous other bills proposed in the US and around the world. We are currently witnessing a transition in the industry, from an era of voluntary transparency and data sharing to an era of compliance-focused transparency and data sharing that strictly meets regulatory requirements. The Integrity Institute has an important role to play in getting that right. Our briefing on best practices in transparency, which had contributions from 20 members, was our most shared and utilized resource by our members. Our elections best practices briefings, which had contributions from over 30 members, were cited this year by the European Commission in their guidance on the DSA’s election integrity requirements. Our community has proven that we have experience and expertise that is necessary if government regulators are going to create the right incentives for companies to design, govern, and operate their platforms more responsibly.
In our first-ever annual report, you’ll find selective lists of the work we’ve done, the important organizations and people who have been influenced by it, and the citations we’ve gotten. And to be clear, those are all incredibly important markers of the impact we’ve had. But much of our activity doesn’t quite fit nicely into a standard annual report. It’s two colleagues reconnecting after their company’s layoffs and sharing opportunities with each other; it’s professionals asking each other questions and learning how other people have tackled the problems they are confronting; it’s four experts wishing the world understood a particular problem better and creating a blog post or briefing that explains it. At the end of the day, our most important work is gathering together hundreds of people who are committed to the Integrity Oath and to working together to advance a healthy social internet. We are incredibly lucky to have been chosen as a home for this profession. And we are lucky to have the support of foundations and individual donors that make it possible to do this work. Hopefully our annual report validates the faith that we had that if we gathered integrity workers together, then amazing things would naturally come out of that community, and validates that this important work is worth supporting.
Jeff Allen, Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer
