INSIDER Q&A: TRUST AND SAFETY EXEC TALKS ABOUT AI AND CONTENT MODERATION

Alex Popken was a longtime trust and safety executive at Twitter focusing on content moderation before leaving in 2023.

She was the first employee there dedicated to moderating Twitter’s advertising business when she started in 2013.

Now, she’s vice president of trust and safety at WebPurify, a content moderation service provider that works with businesses to help ensure the content people post on their sites follows the rules.

Social media platforms are not the only ones that need policing. Any consumer-facing company — from retailers to dating apps to news sites — needs someone to weed out unwanted content, whether that’s hate speech, harassment or anything illegal. Companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence in their efforts, but Popken notes that humans remain essential to the process.

The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: HOW DID YOU SEE CONTENT MODERATION CHANGE IN THAT DECADE YOU WERE AT TWITTER?

A: When I joined Twitter, content moderation was in its nascent stages. I think even trust and safety was this concept that people were just starting to understand and grapple with. The need for content moderation escalated as we, as platforms saw them be weaponized in new ways.

I can sort of recall some key milestones of my tenure at Twitter. For example, Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, where we realized for the first time, realized in a meaningful way, that without content moderation we can have bad actors undermining democracy. The necessity for investing in this area became ever more important.

Q: A LOT OF COMPANIES, THE BIGGER SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES ARE LEANING ON AI FOR CONTENT MODERATION. DO YOU THINK THAT AI IS IN A PLACE YET WHERE IT’S POSSIBLE TO RELY ON IT?