From "Fail Fast" to "Mature Safely:" Expert Perspectives as Secondary Stakeholders on Teen-Centered Social Media Risk Detection

In addressing various risks on social media, the HCI community has advocated for teen-centered risk detection technologies over platform-based, parent-centered features. However, their real-world viability remains underexplored by secondary stakeholders beyond the family unit. Therefore, we present an evaluation of a teen-centered social media risk detection dashboard through online interviews with 33 online safety experts. While experts praised our dashboard’s clear design for teen agency, their feedback revealed five primary tensions in implementing and sustaining such technology: objective vs. context-dependent risk definition, informing risks vs. meaningful intervention, teen empowerment vs. motivation, need for data vs. data privacy, and independence vs. sustainability. These findings motivate us to rethink “teen-centered” and a shift from a “fail fast” to a “mature safely” paradigm for youth safety technology innovation. We offer design implications for addressing these tensions before system deployment with teens and strategies for aligning secondary stakeholders’ interests to deploy and sustain such technologies in the broader ecosystem of youth online safety.