STRONG COMMUNITIES GIVE RISE TO MORE CONSENTFUL TECHNOLOGIESWhen attention is paid to relationships, stronger communities result. This is the case in physical communities as well as digital. Users and makers can strengthen their communities and improve consent therein by asking:• How can we better protect each other? For example, is there a technical way to have other community members see and respond to harassing messages, so the person who is targeted does not have to deal with the barrage alone?• How can we hold each other accountable as a community? What are some community-based strategies for addressing non-consensual actions that work on the roots of the issue?• How can we better support and uplift each other? How can we normalize asking for consent on our platform?Small changes can make a big difference when we add a little friction to pathways used for abusive behaviour, and when we make it easier for people to help each other. For example, new users might have a quieter voice until they’ve been around awhile, or messages mentioning you could be downvoted by your friends so you won’t see them.

Community accountability is a community-based strategy, rather than a police/prison-based strategy, to address violence within our communities. Community accountability is a process in which a community — a group of friends, a family, a church, a workplace, an apartment complex, a neighborhood, etc — work together to do the following things:• Create and affirm values & practices that resist abuse and oppression and encourage safety, support, and accountability• Develop sustainable strategies to address community members’ abusive behavior, creating a process for them to account for their actions and transform their behavior• Commit to ongoing development of all members of the community, and the community itself, to transform the political conditions that reinforce oppression and violence• Provide safety & support to community members who are violently targeted that respects their self-determination1What would a community accountability approach to digital communities look like?