Top Trust & Safety Experts to Follow in 2024

By
January 9, 2024
Hand pressing a glowing red 'Follow' button, representing social media engagement and user interaction

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Until recently, many Trust & Safety professionals worked in the dark. Concerned with the negative perception of the work and limited by strict NDAs, most were not open about their activities – certainly not in public forums. Unintentionally – this led to deep silos between teams and hindered industry knowledge-sharing and collaboration.

Thankfully – that has changed. Over the past year, we have seen more and more Trust & Safety professionals talking openly on social media about the challenges of their work, sharing learnings, setting industry best practices, and collaborating openly with each other. We believe that this exciting change will further the Trust & Safety field, and help growing teams and new T&S professionals do the work better, and scale faster.

With that, we’d like to call out some of our favorite T&S experts to follow. These are the people we turn to when we want to get a deeper sense of what’s happening in the industry, and who we bounce ideas off of when we think about new collaborations. So – in no particular order, here are our top T&S experts, and why you should follow them in 2024:

Alice Goguen Hunsberger

A leader in Trust & Safety and customer experience, Alice has accumulated a vast experience across the Trust & Safety ecosystem. In her recent roles, she was VP of CX and T&S at Grindr for three years, and led CX and T&S at OkCupid / Match Group for ten years. She is passionate about ethical tech policy, and believes that dating apps, like the whole internet, should be welcoming, equitable, and inclusive for everyone.

Why you should follow her: Alice hosts the Integrity Institute podcast, Trust in Tech, where she meets with Integrity Institute members and others in the field to talk about the burning topics of integrity work.

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Jeremy Gottchalk

Jeremy has accumulated almost 20 years of experience as a lawyer, operator, and consultant, and has become an industry-leading voice for risk management, trust & safety, regulatory compliance and legal strategy for marketplaces and digital platforms. As the founder of Marketplace Risk (and its conferences in San Francisco and London), Jeremy has built the most comprehensive resource for the marketplace and digital platform ecosystem to learn, network and collaborate.

Why you should follow him: As founder of Marketplace Risk, Jeremy brough marketplace Trust & Safety into the limelight, and has established a powerful community of T&S leaders in marketplaces.

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Jeff Dunn

It’s hard to talk about Trust & Safety without bringing up Jeff Dunn. Jeff is an industry leader with over a decade of experience in protecting users, brands, and platforms. After spending over seven years at Google Trust & Safety, Jeff currently serves as VP Trust & Safety at Hinge, where he is responsible for all aspects of safety, compliance, support, and more. On the community side: Jeff co-founded the Trust & Safety Hackathon – where participants work together to find unique solutions to T&S challenges, and has helped countless T&S professionals with career guidance and networking.

Why you should follow him: Jeff’s hackathons and career consultation are the epitome of industry collaboration and mutual support.

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Julie Inman Grant

As Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie leads the world’s first government regulatory agency committed to keeping its citizens safer online. While her experience in the non-profit and government sectors is distinct, Julie has also spent two decades working in senior public policy and safety roles in the tech industry at Microsoft, Twitter, and Adobe.
Her achievements as Commissioner are extensive, but some highlights include: Julie is the Chair of the Child Dignity Alliance’s Technical Working Group, a Board Member of the WePROTECT Global Alliance, serves on the WEF’s Global Coalition for Digital Safety and on their XR Ecosystem Governance Steering Committee on Building and Defining the Metaverse. She has also led work towards the Online Safety Act of 2021, implementing sweeping reforms in online safety, and was recently appointed by WEF as one of the #Agile50, the world’s most influential leaders revolutionizing government.

Why you should follow her: Julie is the world’s leading expert on online safety regulations, and the flagbearer for safety by design.

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Sahar Massachi

Co-founder and executive director of the Integrity Institute, Sahar has a long history in pro-social online activities. Sahar founded two prosocial startups, ran fundraising data at Wikipedia, and helped run Zephyr Teachout for Governor. That said, one of his most important achievements was during his four-year stint at Facebook, where he worked on the civic integrity team, protecting elections and deepening civic engagement worldwide. He has since become a fellow (and affiliate) at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and become a member of the advisory committee of the Louis D. Brandeis Legacy Fund for Social Justice, a StartingBloc fellow, and a Roddenbery Fellow.

Why you should follow him: Sahar’s founding of the Integrity Institute is one of the driving forces behind industry collaboration, best practices, and knowledge sharing.

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David Sullivan

David is the founding Executive Director of the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership, and a seasoned human rights and technology policy practitioner. Formerly, as Program Director at the Global Network Initiative (GNI), he played a pivotal role in expanding the initiative’s membership and advocating for rights-based approaches to issues such as terrorist and extremist content and Internet shutdowns. With expertise in mass atrocity prevention in Africa, David led the research and policy team at the Enough Project, influencing legislation and corporate behavior in conflict zones. Finally, David is a Humanity in Action Senior Fellow, advising the Silicon Flatirons research center.

Why you should follow him: David’s Trust & Safety glossary of terms is an indispensable tool in the T&S toolkit, which has helped establish many industry best practices.

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Sharon Fischer

Sharon is a Trust & Safety veteran with over fifteen years of experience in the gaming and social platform industries. Having started as a moderator for the popular children’s MMO Club Penguin, Sharon held several roles at Disney, and joined TwoHat – Microsoft’s moderation software company, in 2016. Sharon used her experience to launch Real Game Consulting in 2020, helping platforms create and maintain positive community interactions. Today, Sharon leads the Trust & Safety team at Keywords Studios, which has established itself as an industry leader by prioritizing superhero (moderator) wellbeing and optimizing workflows through their AI + HI approach.

Why you should follow her: Having established a long history in gaming Trust & Safety, Sharon is a definitive resource for anyone interested in gamer safety.

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Inbal Goldberger

Inbal started her career in military intelligence, and quickly moved into cybersecurity and trust & safety. Over a tenure at Google T&S, Inbal was primarily focused on preventing user harm on Google Search through the management of global, cross-functional teams spanning intelligence, enforcement, and incident management. Among her achievements: Inbal is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Coalition for Digital Safety, holds a board position at Marketplace Risk, serves as a core leader of the Atlantic Council’s Task Force for a Trustworthy Future Web, and participates as a steering committee member of the Trust & Safety Forum. Just this year, Inbal collaborated with New York University to establish the Trust & Safety Academy.

Why you should follow her: Inbal provides clear, straightforward explanations and analyses of complex, pressing issues in Trust & Safety

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Conclusion

Judging by its online presence alone, Trust & Safety is quickly becoming a more open, collaborative profession. The individuals named in this blog post are furthering that by sharing their expertise and experience, promoting a better understanding of our field, and supporting fellow Trust & Safety professionals in their career trajectory. Keep following these individuals to stay ahead of industry trends and understand how it develops.

Finally, if you’ve made it this far, we are sure you would benefit from our T&S community – the #TSCollective, where members engage in open discussion, share their experiences and learn from one another. Join us by clicking below to apply!

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