How to get buy-in for T&S (part one)
I'm Alice Hunsberger. Trust & Safety Insider is my weekly rundown on the topics, industry trends and workplace strategies that trust and safety professionals need to know about to do their job.
This week's Week in Review (EiM #282) got me thinking about how to get T&S initiatives prioritised when there's not an imminent emergency. So I've got a framework to help you think that through (it's also helpful in other roles too).
The full version is for EiM members (which is worth it for a few bucks/pounds a week, if you ask me) but if you're between work or can't afford it right now, drop an email to ben@everythinginmoderation.co and we'll get it sorted.
Also – I'll be in London next month for the Trust & Safety Summit. I'd love to meet EiM readers there, so send me an email if you want to meet up (and let me know if you need a discount code and I'll hook you up too). Here we go! — Alice
Today’s edition is in partnership with Thorn, working to transform how children are protected in the digital age.
While the benefits of generative AI are being realised more every day; like any powerful tool, the threat of misuse and ability to cause harm is equally high and already being exposed.
Thorn’s latest reference guide looks at the emerging trend of AI-generated child sexual abuse material (AIG-CSAM). This essential guide for trust and safety teams will help you understand the various types of content, key challenges, and key considerations for moderating this content.
What to do when there's a new CEO
Over the years, I’ve worked at companies that have had a lot of change within senior leadership and in the CEO position. That has meant that I’ve had to learn how to get on their radar with the view to getting more resources for my teams.
Sometimes, the CEO naturally cares about Trust & Safety and so it’s easy to get buy-in and investment in safety. Other times, it’s just not top of mind and it takes a bit more scheming to figure it out.
I’ve not always been successful, but I’ve found that the key is to figure out what the CEO cares about, discover which departments are getting the budget and support, and then find a way to convince those execs that tying in T&S initiatives is to their advantage. This will help the standing of T&S within the new leadership.
A lot of tech CEOs that I've worked with follow this inverted Hierarchy of Growth Business Needs or something similar. As you see below, the focus on is revenue growth, and on brand and strategic differentiation as a way to drive that growth. Compliance and operations — which T&S often get compared to — aren’t top priorities.
The good news is we can map T&S investment to every one of these areas. Here how I would think about proactively making a case for T&S using the framework:
Brand
Why it matters
Branding shapes how users generally feel about the company. This isn’t about being the safest possible option; instead users need to feel as though the brand is safe enough to use, or rather, the brand not being safe shouldn’t be at the top of user’s minds. One difficult thing here: once you draw attention to safety, it’s admitting that it’s a problem. So how can the values of trust and safety be embedded into the brand in a way that feels purely positive?
Real-life examples
- Uber’s CEO highlighting safety as a core value
- Grindr’s Play Safe campaign (featuring my old team!)
- Match Group’s brand positioning with Tracy Breedon, and then again with Yoel Roth
Note that none of these PR campaigns say the brands are the safest or have safety figured out. Instead, they say that they value safety and are actively working on best practices and/or have a new champion of safety at the company.
What you can do
- Use T&S systems to promote pro-social interactions, rather than preventing anti-social interactions, focusing on the positive interactions users have with each other. Conveniently, this may only be achieved by investing in detection and enforcement against negative behaviours.
- Think about tools or features that would help the most marginalised users and also be helpful to everyone else. Some examples might be privacy features or self-care/mental health resources.
- Pick a value that is important to the brand and champion it: safety, privacy, or self expression.
- Work with Chief Marketing or Brand Officer, plus any departments that talk to customers (customer support, user research, etc), to gain clarity on what core users really care about, and what the general user perception of the brand is. Focus on moving metrics like customer satisfaction and user loyalty.
Strategic differentiation
Why it matters
Strategic differentiation takes the core brand positioning and then turns it into a unique selling point. This is where the platform wants users to think that the platform prioritises safety in a unique way, or better than their competition. A company using safety as its strategic differentiator is a dream for a T&S team as it means that T&S will have budget and get to innovate.
Real-life examples
Safety
- Bumble vs other dating apps: “women first”
- Pinterest vs other social media = “A better internet is possible”
- Anthropic vs other AI companies = human values; safety
Privacy
Expression
Note that each one is focused on a core value and a way that the company positions itself with that value against the competition.
What you can do
- Understand what the competition is doing (or lacking) and what users actually care about (user focus groups and advisory groups are great for this). Start with one unique feature and go from there.
- Be consistent with practical support for users as well as PR releases. This is about more than just branding, there has to be some substance here, and it has to feel sincere to users.
- Find a non-profit organisation with a similar mission and collaborate in an authentic way that feels like a win for both sides.