ABSTRACT
Since the early 1990s, Trust and Safety has become a critical component for companies that enable billions of individuals and millions of businesses to interact, operate, and share content online. Consequently, trust and safety professionals have had a significant—though mostly behind the scenes—influence on the policies, practices, and procedures shaping the internet. In this chapter, we share findings from a qualitative interview-based study, a part of a larger project that seeks to understand and map how trust and safety has evolved. Our contributions are threefold: first, we present perspectives on the history of trust and safety in three waves; second, we interrogate how interviewees reported technological changes and societal responses shaping trust and safety work in each wave; third, we discuss how our findings suggest trust and safety has have evolved through professionalization, systematization, and mitigation. In all of this, we center the voices of the trust and safety professionals we interviewed, noting their insights provide immense value as we navigate new challenges and continue to grapple with long-standing dilemmas.
