Shweta Singh, Associate Professor of Information Systems and Management at Warwick Business School, the University of Warwick said: “We are here because to date, lawmakers have largely allowed social media platforms to mark their own homework – prompting outrage from both carers of vulnerable youngsters, women and defenders of free speech. The route between moderation and censorship is a tightrope.

“Change is needed as we simply cannot have an internet which is helpless at preventing violence against women and children, this includes sexual violence, misogynistic abuse among many other forms of online harassments. For this change to happen, legislators need a better understanding of the technology they are seeking to govern. If tech businesses know that an extra level of Responsible AI could better govern reams of content, they nonetheless have little incentive to impose it.

“Whistleblowers in recent years have spoken out against Meta’s algorithms and moderation methods and their harmful impact on individuals, accusing them of putting profits over people.

“These are commercial platforms – fewer users mean less cash. But if regulators understood what is possible – ‘intelligent’ technology that reads between the lines and sifts benign communication from the sinister – they could demand its presence in the laws they’re seeking to pass.

“At Warwick Business School, we’re seeking to build a tool that can keep women, children and the vulnerable safe, and prevent online harm. This is a technology driven by Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) that can oversee and understand the subtleties of languages and images - an AI that can understand context. This tool could provide the extra layer of insight to flag and understand how online predators use platforms to abuse and harass young girls, radicalise young boys and shine a spotlight on damaging communication, which can pose online risk to children.”