Early Warning | Policy & Regulations | Jobs & Careers | T&S FAQs
Subscribe to the newsletter here
T&S Early Warning News
Get ahead of new stories that are impacting the T&S industry.
We found dozens of TikTok accounts skirting the app's filters to peddle drugs by using nose and snowflake emoji and banned hashtags
Businessinsider | May 03, 2022
Company Listed: TikTok
TikTok accounts advertising illegal drugs can easily circumvent the app's word blocks to reach new audiences from the Discover page, an Insider investigation has found.
We found accounts using emoji such as snowflake, snowmen, and noses in their posts to advertise cocaine. Snow is a common slang term for cocaine.
Insider also found accounts pushing magic mushrooms that used slang and tied together banned hashtags with permitted hashtags to get around TikTok's filters on more obvious drug-related terms. Cocaine and psychedelic mushrooms are illegal in both the UK and the US.
WA woman loses $732,000 to property scam after responding to fake email
Vervetimes | May 04, 2022
Company Listed: Social Media
A would-be homeowner has lost more than $700,000 in a single click.
The West Australian woman was in the process of purchasing a property in Beaconsfield in April when she received an email from someone she thought was her settlement agent.
The emailer had sent through authentic-looking documents and asked that she deposit the money into a bank account prior to settlement. The message came via a generic Hotmail email address that used the agency’s name.
White House 'disinformation czar' Nina Jankowicz makes TikTok account private
Fox News | May 03, 2022
Company Listed: TikTok
The Biden administration's new executive director of its Disinformation Governance Board has made her TikTok account private, thus removing it from the public space.
Some on the social media platform questioned the move by Nina Jankowicz, who has also been criticized after a TikTok video of her singing a revised version of Mary Poppins’ "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" tailored around "information laundering" was unearthed.
T&S Policies & Regulations
Regulatory news and policy decisions impacting the T&S ecosystem.
Compare and review T&S Policies for dozens of companies here
When social media moderation becomes censorship
Washingtonexaminer | May 04, 2022
Company Listed: Social Media
While Elon Musk promises a Twitter that does not suppress speech, former President Barack Obama recently asserted that we need more content moderation rather than less. Obama seems to miss the reality of what moderation really means. Intentionally or mistakenly, he's calling for greater censorship.
Genuine "moderation" means protecting people from information that might do them harm, typically misinformation or disinformation that leads them toward unwise or dangerous actions or decisions. Moderation should not "protect" people from viewpoints or dissent; that would be censorship.
California pushes ahead with kids’ online safety proposals as Washington stalls
Yahoo News | May 04, 2022
Company Listed: Social Media
A California state panel advanced a proposal that would hold tech companies responsible for features that can be addictive and harmful, a measure that, if passed, could put California at the forefront of the fight for kids’ online safety as Washington stalls.
All but one member of the California Assembly Judiciary Committee voted to advance the bill, A.B. 2408, with Republican Assemblymember Kevin Kiley, who is running for Congress, abstaining.
Could the UK's Online Safety Bill change gaming worldwide?
Gamesindustry | May 04, 2022
Company Listed: Social Media
Creating safe, inclusive and engaging spaces for the gaming community has long been the goal of the gaming industry, with games businesses creating and implementing tools, features and processes to address illegal and unwanted behaviors and keep players safe online.
To date, this approach has largely been self-motivated, with only limited regulation; namely the take down requirements for unlawful content under the e-commerce regulations.
How Ireland lost its chance to become Big Tech’s ‘super regulator’
CNBC | May 04, 2022
Company Listed: Facebook
Incoming EU rules forcing Big Tech to police content on the internet more aggressively will be enforced directly by the European Commission, a move experts say will diminish the role Ireland has played so far in supervising digital giants in the region.
Since 2018, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission has been the main privacy watchdog supervising the likes of Facebook parent company Meta and Google under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which aims to give consumers more control over their data.
Groups surprised at government 'secrecy' over online harm bill consultation
CBC | May 04, 2022
Company Listed: Social Media
Some advocacy groups and individuals who submitted feedback to the federal government about its proposed online harms legislation say they were surprised the government didn't make their consultation documents public, which would have ensured concerns about a "disturbing" and "extremely problematic" plan were heard widely.
The Liberal government laid out a blueprint last year for cracking down on harmful material posted online to platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. Under the proposed rules, a digital safety commissioner would help enforce a new regime that requires social media companies to weed out child pornography, terrorist content, hate speech and other harmful posts.
Facebook, Google Face Regulatory Reckoning That May End Big Tech Dominance
Newsweek | May 04, 2022
Company Listed: Facebook, Google, Meta, TikTok
In February, the company formerly known as Facebook lost $232 billion in value in the stock market—the biggest loss ever suffered by a U.S. company in a single day, a plunge equal to the combined market values of Netflix and Fedex. By the end of April, the stock had lost another fifth of its value.
Meta Platforms, as the company is now formally known, can only wish that a brutal stock beating is its only problem. Meta faces serious threats on several fronts, and any one of them might prove existential. For the first time in its 18-year history, the number of people who use the once-ubiquitous-seeming Facebook social network has been dropping. Privacy protections added by Apple last year to its phone software are hobbling Facebook's bread-and-butter ad business, which depends on keeping tabs on what users are up to. And the all-important youth market is shunning Facebook in favor of TikTok.
Twitter Plans Aggressive Pitch to Calm Advertisers Amid Musk Deal
Bloombergquint | May 04, 2022
Company Listed: Twitter
Twitter Inc. is planning an aggressive pitch to advertisers during a media buying event this week, attempting to assuage fears over how much the service will change if Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover is finalized.
The network's pitch at the IAB Digital NewFronts, the annual event for digital companies to sell ad space to marketers, will be a "spectacle," according to a person familiar with the matter, who declined to be named because the details aren't public.
T&S Careers & Jobs
T&S jobs posted recently, often within the last 24 hours, looking for top talent.
Check out all the recent T&S job postings here.
Incident and Escalation Manager, Trust and Safety
Google | Austin, TX
Posted: May 03, 2022
Bachelor's degree in a technology/business field or equivalent practical experience.
2 years of experience in a trust and safety gement field.
5 years of experience in trust and safety related fields that work with Google's ads products or similar ads products.
Experience with project management, including implementing process improvements, prioritization, and multitasking.
Experience with investigations on unconventional abuses across ad ecosystems and adjacent products (e.g., account security, insider risk, etc.).
Understanding of online advertising and regulatory trends.
Excellent communication and influencing skills.
Data Scientist II, Trust & Safety
Tinder | United States
Posted: May 04, 2022
You have at least 2-4 years of professional working experience.
Experience with SQL and data visualization tools (e.g., Tableau or Mode).
Familiarity with scripting languages and sophisticated statistical techniques - A/B experience is required.
Shown working experience in developing a nuanced business understanding, testable hypotheses, and significant findings from data.
Eagerness to identify and explore new product opportunities, potential improvements to our data infrastructure, and unanswered questions about member behavior.
Comfort using descriptive and inferential statistics.
A curiosity of how things work, from both a business and technical perspective.
Program Manager, Youth Trust and Regulatory Readiness, YouTube
Google | United States
Posted: May 03, 2022
Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience
6 years of experience in child safety, compliance, or technology policy
Experience managing multi-stakeholder projects and workflows
Experience eliciting input from a variety of technical and non-technical stakeholders, including leveraging data
Policy Lead Legal Removals Trust and Safety
Google | San Francisco, CA, USA
Posted: May 02, 2022
Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
4 years of experience in Planning, Policy Analysis, Policy Development, Project Management, or Process Improvement and law public policy or law in Asia Pacific.
Experience working with one of the following: Internet technologies, related policy and regulatory environments and challenges affecting the internet, free expression, online safety, and content moderation.
Experience working with, influencing, and negotiating with a broad array of cross-functional stakeholders.
Experience using data and technology to identify and solve complex business challenges or experience diagnosing operational pain points and leading efforts to reduce these issues.
Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate complex challenges into simple and clear language.
Ads Traffic Quality Analyst, Trust and Safety
Google | New York, NY, USA
Posted: May 04, 2022
Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or equivalent practical experience in risk, abuse, fraud, or data protection.
2 years of experience in risk analysis, fraud investigations, detection, prevention, data science, or data analysis.
Experience with querying, building data pipelines/dashboards, and analyzing datasets.
T&S FAQs
What is T&S?
Great question (and one the industry hasn’t fully agreed upon). Think of Trust & Safety as the organization that protects social media and Big Tech companies and users from online abuse. As long as users are able to generate content online, time has told us that a minority of these users will create content that is offensive, scandalous, fraudulent, disingenuous, misinformative, hateful, spiteful, and harmful. T&S fights this with flexible policies, resilient operations, and informed detections.
Is T&S interesting?
That depends. If you enjoy stopping bad actors and keeping good people safe, then you’ll love T&S. It requires understanding new technologies and staying on top of breaking issues across society and the world. It also pays Big Tech salaries (no coding skills required).
How do you get into T&S?
That’s the tricky part. The short answer is: not easily. Most T&S orgs are part of Big Tech and (as a result) pay extremely well, so jobs are highly competitive. If you don’t know someone in the industry who can help refer you in, then you can learn more about T&S policies, current events, issues, regulations, and jobs at trustsafetyinstitute.com to improve your hiring chances and start doing meaningful work that helps people.