creating safe spaces online

If you take a look at a community like LJ feminist, you'll see that the moderators take some pains to ensure that the community remains a safe space, by defining verbal boundaries across a number of diverse identities.

I've found recently that ad systems, such as Google's Adwords and similar programs, are not conducive to creating safe space for certain minority groups. For example, someone told me recently about how the trans activist site, Transcending Gender, turned off Google ads to ensure a safe space for transfolk.

Google may already support ways to ensure a safe space online, and I'll follow up with googlers I know to see if that is the case.

If not, then when I get some of my projects started, I'll try to engage the right googlers to Make It Work.

The problem arises in that a simple statistical plus algorithmic modeling technique does not take into account the complexities of language as played out between and within oppressed groups. For example, besides words like queer and fag, there are racially charged words which some have tried to retake, such as "chinked-out".

It matters then, the context of these words, and assigning ads statistically can easily lead to unsafe spaces for minority groups everywhere. A simple approach to making this better would be to let ad clients specify a list of unsafe stopwords, to use an IR term, although I'm sure googlers and the community at large would have their own ideas and tradeoffs that they would need to manage with care.

As I write this, Google calendar seems to have launched, and MySpace hired someone to help make their space a safer one. MySpace is also seeming to hit critical mass on ThemTube (analog television), and things, I hope, can only grow in size and safety.