Sep 4 2024

Safe Space Lightning Rounds with Trust & Safety Leaders

Post By: Safer / 3 min read

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In the Safe Space: Talking Trust and Safety video series, host John Starr, Thorn's VP of Strategic Impact, engages in candid conversations with the people who make up the trust & safety community. By connecting with respected leaders on a very human level, we hope to learn more about their journey into the field, what they’re up to now, what it all means to them, and any lessons learned along the way.

John also took this opportunity to put each of the guests in the “hot spot” for a lightning round of questions to get their POV on what it’s like to work in trust and safety.

Lightning round with Yoel Roth

In this lightning round interview, Yoel Roth, VP of Trust and Safety at Match Group, shares insights on working in the field. He discusses the unexpected nature of people's behavior, the rewarding aspects of working with dedicated professionals, and the importance of work-life balance. Roth also shares what he thinks is a crucial best practice in Trust and Safety.

You can check out the full interview with Yoel to go deeper into how he got started in trust and safety and what gets him excited about where trust and safety is headed.

“[Trust and safety is] not just about dealing with harmful behavior once it happens. It's about making products that encourage civility and respect and kindness and authenticity. And, I think there's ways you can build a product that does that, and that's such a powerful shift in the way that we think about trust and safety.” - Yoel Roth, VP at Match Group

Lightning round with Jerrel Peterson

In this lightning round interview, Jerrel Peterson, Director of Content Policy at Spotify, shares that he has had to fight imposter syndrome working in T&S, the meme that comes to mind when he feels like the only one in the room that see the potential risk in a situation, and what historical figure he’d love to talk trust and safety with.

You can check out the full interview with Jerrel to go deeper into his background in social work and why he sees trust and safety as a business imperative.

“So much research shows that when folks are experiencing abuse online, when they witness it, they are less likely to log in, they're less likely to engage, they're less likely to post, let's likely do all the things that the platforms want them to do. It's a business imperative to do trust and safety well and to invest in it.” - Jerrel Peterson, Director of Content Policy at Spotify

Lightning round with Patricia Cartes

In this lightning round interview, Patricia Cartes, Head of Trust & Safety at Cantina AI shares who she’d like to talk trust and safety with, how she maintains good mental health, and what practice she would love to see universally adopted by trust and safety teams.

You can check out the full interview with Patricia to hear more of her unique perspectives on common T&S challenges and how she draws from her extensive experience in public policy.

“You can do free speech, with all of the challenges that it brings, “right” if you have a very dedicated team… When I think of the bad actors that might think "because of free speech, I'm going to get away with this." Free speech taken to the absolutist perspective is there's no rule of law. And that team was so dedicated, I think in my view, regardless of whether we made the right calls in terms of moderating content or building systems, there was a dedication and a passion to prevent harm that stays with me today, and that's why I keep doing this job.” - Patricia Cartes, Head of Trust & Safety at Cantina AI

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About host John Starr

John Starr is the VP of Operations & Strategic Impact at Thorn, where he has served on the leadership team for nearly 5 years. Before joining the team at Thorn, John built and scaled the global Trust and Safety content policy team at Twitter, leading safety, identity, counter-CSAM, and integrity policy efforts for the company. The path to T&S work isn’t always obvious; this holds true for John’s journey as well, which includes time as an analyst at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the FBI before he landed at Twitter.

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