Observations From Working in and around Online Safety
Some honest takeaways from the front lines of building solutions
Working in online safety is one of the most meaningful vocations I've been lucky enough to have—but it’s also one of the most frustrating. Here’s 3 thoughts so far about the landscape, the people, and the pitfalls:
Lots of talk, not enough solutions
There are many brilliant and well-intentioned safeguarding experts out there—people who’ve dedicated their careers to protecting vulnerable people from online harm. Their work on policy, awareness, and advocacy is crucial.
But there’s often a gap between the rhetoric and the reality.
Too few people are focused on practical, scalable solutions. Too few are asking: How does this actually work in the hands of a social worker? A parent? A teenager?
Worse still, some are (sometimes disingenuously) offering 'silver bullet' one-size-fits-all 'solutions' that are often just features of a broader product or solution set. Ultimately, it's going to take lots of things coming together to make a meaningful difference.
Awareness without action doesn’t move the needle.
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Less technical fluency than one might expect
Online safety is a technical domain. But you wouldn’t always know it from listening to some of the voices in the space.
Basic technologies like VPNs are often misunderstood or demonised. Policymakers and campaigners alike are sometimes surprised to discover they even exist—let alone how easy they are to use or how essential they are in some legitimate contexts (including on their own government-issued laptops).
It creates policies that sound strong but collapse under the weight of real-world usage.
You can’t regulate the internet if you don’t understand how it works.
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Judgment gets in the way of impact
There’s a tendency to conflate harmful online behaviour with broader lifestyle or moral judgments.
Yes, there are dark corners of the internet that need to be shut down. But not everything we personally dislike is a safeguarding risk.
We should stay focused on harm—on victims, on real-world consequences, on risk mitigation. Otherwise, we risk alienating people who need support, not judgment.
The job is not to police values—it’s to reduce harm.
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These are just three observations so far, but they point to a broader pattern: Online safety needs builders. More pragmatists. More people who understand both the risk and the reality.
We should keep talking. But let’s also get to work.
Oh and if you want to help build the world's most robust safeguarding solution on smartphones for the most vulnerable, hit me up about how to work with Voop!
