Trust, Safety, and Resilience featuring Bethany Smith

Summary:

This episode of Safety is Sexy features Bethany Smith. From her beginnings at Twitter as a tech policy fellow to managing trust and safety issues at various platforms, Bethany discusses the challenges and nuances of the field, including content moderation, community management, and policy enforcement. She recounts navigating high-pressure situations, such as the Christchurch incident, which underscored the importance of thoughtful messaging and flexibility in enforcement. Bethany also emphasizes the collaborative nature of trust and safety, the need for transparency in user communication, and the mental health challenges faced by moderators. 

Bethany Smith:

Bethany is a Trust and Safety policy expert, with experience creating scalable and rigorous platform and product policies to combat abuse and harassment in the social media and gaming arenas. 

She began her career as a Public Policy Fellow at Twitter before moving into Trust and Safety and has since gone on to work at Pinterest, Niantic and other companies. 

She is a two time graduate of the Florida State University where she obtained a masters degree and graduate certificate focused on international affairs and global security.