Alice Hunsberger on Policy, Operations and Building a Successful Career in Trust & Safety

Alice Hunsberger [00:00:00]:
The thing that's the most interesting and that I think could make things easier for a lot of folks when they're working with vendor teams or if they're a vendor, working with companies is to really focus on what outcomes are the most important and why, and not just everyday KPI's like quality scores.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:00:28]:
This is click two Trust, a podcast that delves into the intricate challenges of protecting online communities. All right, Alice, welcome to click to Trust. Thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing today?

Alice Hunsberger [00:00:40]:
I'm good. Thanks for having me, Sabrina.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:00:42]:
I feel like a bit of a radio host. This is the first time I'm doing a podcast interview, so bear with me.

Alice Hunsberger [00:00:48]:
No, it's great. You have a good radio host voice so far.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:00:52]:
When you have matching banks, nothing can go wrong. Let's dive right into it. So, obviously I've known you for a while, we've worked together before, but for our audience, in case they're not familiar, can you share a little bit about yourself?

Alice Hunsberger [00:01:04]:
Sure. I'm Alice Huntsberger. I am vp of trust and safety and content moderation at partner Hero, which is an outsourcing company, but like an ethical good one. I've been at partner Hero for seven ish months now. Prior to that, I was VP of customer experience at Grindr, which includes trust and safety policy, customer support, voice of the customer program, all of the like user facing complainty kind of stuff. And then prior to that I was at OkCupid, which is part of Match group, another dating app, doing the same thing. So I've been in, been in the trust and safety space professionally for like 15 years now.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:01:56]:
That's awesome. No, you definitely. I'm super excited to interview because you have so much expertise across a lot of different from being a bpo to being on dating apps and different platforms. So thank you again. I'm really excited for this interview. I want to circle back to your point about like the ethical type of bpos, but I, before we get into that, I wanted to ask you. So I feel like you and I both kind of came from the experience where like, there wasn't necessarily a, you know, if you look at universities these days, especially like Stanford, I think Harvard maybe, they're actually offering like courses and degrees in trust and safety and user safety for digital platforms, which is awesome. But I don't think that was like even a career when we were heading into this space.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:02:46]:
So I was curious. I'm always curious to ask folks who have been in the space for a while, like, how did you end up a trust and safety professional.

Alice Hunsberger [00:02:54]:
Such a good question. Yeah, it blows my mind that people are studying it now. It's really, really weird for me. I got started when I was in college, which is like 20 plus years ago now, where I founded a little niche message board that was for like, punk rockers who are really into trading vinyl records about like a very specific subgenre of hardcore music. And so I just started this message board for people to talk to each other and very quickly realized as a woman running a very male dominated, niche subculture message board, you need community guidelines and you need enforcement. And people on the Internet can be jerks, especially to women sometimes. And so I got crash course in what trust and safety was and why it's needed. And I ran that board for a few years and then quit because it was awful.

Alice Hunsberger [00:04:04]:
My nice, cozy, lovely community with all of my friends, as soon as it got to be bigger and more popular and outside of that group became like a cesspool of edgelords, you know? And now I know a lot better and I would know what I would do. But, you know, back then, it was totally like the Wild west. So I didn't go to college for it. I actually went to college. I got a film degree and was a documentary film editor for a few years. And then a friend of mine who I knew through another nerdy Hobby, he was a founder of OkCupid. And so in 2009, when the economy crashed, there was a recession. Nobody was making documentary films anymore.

Alice Hunsberger [00:04:51]:
I was trying to figure out if I wanted to do that. What I wanted to do was really interested in tech. And so I started as like a frontline, part time freelance moderator for OkCupid, and, you know, was more qualified than almost anybody because I had already done moderation for several years and knew what it was. And then I just worked my way from the ground up, was there for, for ten years. And the job itself was by accident because I just happened to know a founder, but I had already been doing the work on the side as a hobby beforehand, which I think really helped.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:05:32]:
I always think it's so interesting and helpful to talk to folks who were either creating or kind of managing platforms during the initial kind of boom, like, you know, like, let's say late nineties, early two thousands, because we were all kind of like, like, oh, this is so exciting, the Internet. And then there was this, like, oh, what are people doing on here? And I always, it's fun, too. I always learn new things from you, Alice, but Edgelord, I think, is going to be the new way that I.

Alice Hunsberger [00:06:02]:
Add to my tiction. Yeah, maybe that's the old school term.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:06:07]:
That's what I'm like. I need to write that one down. But, okay, let's circle back to. You mentioned ethical content moderation. You were a content moderator yourself, right? So you went through that experience. What is the difference? What does that look like? What are some of the ethical concerns around content moderation? And how do you, as a leader in this space, kind of work to maintain a safe Internet but also maintain the wellness and the well being of the moderators?

Alice Hunsberger [00:06:34]:
It's so nuanced and tricky, and I'm learning more about it every day. I think there's a lot of different layers. The layer that you hear about a lot is having organized wellness programs for frontline moderators. And that's really important. You want to make sure that people have psychological support. You want to make sure that you have good things in place for any kind of emergency situation. You want to have an in house team that can take care of people as well as external teams, because sometimes people feel more comfortable reporting to somebody they know, who they see in the office, and sometimes people feel more comfortable talking to somebody who's not employed by the same employer. So there's all kinds of things there that I think are really important.

Alice Hunsberger [00:07:28]:
But the thing that you don't hear people talk about that I think is as important, if not more, is how people are treated and respected inside the company that they work for. And this is the case for bpos as well as for in house teams like historically, content moderators and customer support people have been, like, at the very bottom of the hierarchy. At tech companies, they're the lowest paid. They have the least amount of influence.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:08:07]:
A lot of the time, they come from marginalized, already marginalized communities and then feel further marginalized in these positions.

Alice Hunsberger [00:08:15]:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And the work is really stressful and really hard. And so I think for me, you know, it's. It's all well and good to have a wellness program, and that's really, really important. But you also have to make sure that you're actually treating people well. And so that's things like having leadership at the company who has done that job before and has respect for it. You know, like, I've.

Alice Hunsberger [00:08:44]:
I've done that job. So I know, know exactly what it's like giving people equity in the company. If you're a public company and the moderators who are doing the work don't have equity, then that makes them feel devalued and not as important, really looking at things like attrition numbers, where if people are quitting all the time, then that's not a great sign. And why are they unhappy? Pay, obviously, is, like another really, really big one. You want to pay people fairly and well for the work that they're doing. Yeah, just. Just having a general company structure that is, like, respectful of people's individual needs and gives them really good career options as well. So, you know, a lot of people feel kind of stuck in these content moderation positions, especially people who work for bpos because they're back office jobs.

Alice Hunsberger [00:09:43]:
So you don't have to talk on the phone with this screaming customer, which is attractive. The pay is decent, but the work is also really kind of hard, especially if you're working with super difficult content. And so then it sometimes becomes this kind of golden handcuff situation where people are like, well, the pay is too good for me to leave, but it's not good enough for me to be able to take the time that I need to take care of myself. And I don't know where else to go, and I don't know what else to do, but I can't do this anymore. And so then you have people telling themselves or, you know, potentially even telling the people they work for, like, everything's fine, everything's good. I'm totally cool. And, like, they're not okay. So you need to make sure that you have programs in place to, like, give people skills and give people options so that they feel safe when it's no longer healthy for them to do this kind of work, they have a way to do something else, and they have support to do something else as well.

Alice Hunsberger [00:10:42]:
So there's so much, so much more outside of just, like, wellness check.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:10:48]:
Yeah, no, I actually really loved that you touched upon that because I think you're right. People do tend to think of, like, you know, the wellness programs and the on staff counselors, and obviously, that's really important, and you should invest in that. But I also like the, there's kind of a responsibility or a call to action in what you're saying. It's also like, yeah, that's great. But also, how are you demonstrating that you respect and value your content moderators, whether you're a BPO or honestly, if you're a platform that's outsourcing work to a BPO, what are you doing to make sure that you're not exacerbating these inequalities or these kind of, like, power dynamics? Right. I think we've talked about this. I've seen this a lot. There's such a pull or a kind of intuitive reaction to blame content moderators when things are going wrong.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:11:36]:
Instead of looking in the mirror and being like, did I set them up for success? Like, did I write good policy? Did I provide good trainings? Did I give their managers the data that they need to do their jobs? Well, I think it's important for us. Like, I just, I really love that you're kind of emphasizing the responsibility that companies have to content moderators and to providing them with, like, meaningful opportunities.

Alice Hunsberger [00:11:59]:
You know, I get really frustrated when I see care and attention put to the, like, work experience of engineers or product managers or other people at tech companies. And then even in house trust and safety teams aren't given that same level of attention. And there's definitely, like, a hierarchy system within tech companies about, for example, engineers that have often have these very well planned out individual contributor career tracks so that they can continue doing the work at higher levels and get the support to do that. And content moderation and customer support, too. It just sort of seen as this, like, super easy job that anybody can do that you just, like, funnel people in and out of. It's like, these are human beings and they can see the difference, and it requires expertise.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:13:05]:
Like, it's not an easy job at all, just because maybe it's not technical in nature. I was going to ask you a little bit more about your platform experience. I kind of want to circle back to that again because I think as a woman in tech and in a vp role, I don't know if our listeners are aware of this, but that's actually pretty rare. Like, some of the bigger tech companies I worked for reported less than, like, for me, being a mexican american hispanic woman, like, less than 4% of the company was in or less than 4% of leadership roles were occupied by latina tech workers. And so I think, like, as somebody who's kind of made their way or kind of, like, found theirself in a leadership position, carved space for themselves, do you have any suggestions for other folks, whether that's, like, women or BIPOC employees or queer employees when it comes to kind of carving out a space for yourself in tech? Because I think especially, like, like you said, trust and safety is not always inherently valued, and then there's even more power dynamics within that based on your kind of demographics, your identity. So I don't want to put you on the spot, but I was super curious about, like, even on a personal note, about your journey and kind of how you did it.

Alice Hunsberger [00:14:21]:
Yeah, I love that question. I don't have magic answers for people. The really interesting thing about my career is it's, you know, I'm now at my third company in tech. And the first two companies, I've been through a lot of C suite changeovers as both at OkCupid and at Grindr. There were changes pre and post going public, and I've been through many cycles of different CEO's at both companies. And so the thing that I noticed really, like, very interestingly, is who is in the C suite and who is the CEO even makes a really big difference. I've talked to a lot of people who get really frustrated with their careers because they're like, I'm doing everything right. I'm working as hard as I can.

Alice Hunsberger [00:15:20]:
I am advocating for myself. I'm, like, going above and beyond, and I just am not getting anywhere. And in my experience, it's not you. It's not about you. It's not about the. I mean, it is about you in the sense that, like, you are not being given opportunities. But it's not that. Yeah, it's not that people necessarily are doing something wrong or have to work harder or there's some magic trick to getting promoted to vp.

Alice Hunsberger [00:15:49]:
It's really whether there's somebody at the company who recognizes your talent and is going to advocate for you really hard. And so for me, especially, the promotion to VP was one that I had to really, really fight for. And I asked for it coming in, and they said, oh, I don't think you're ready yet. And I was like, okay, well, as part of the conversation about hiring me, this person who has, like, ten years experience at a dating app doing all of the things that you want me to do, let's talk about, like, what else you need that would convince you that I'm VP level. And so we had a conversation right at the beginning, and they were basically like, you know, there's a.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:16:38]:
We.

Alice Hunsberger [00:16:39]:
We agreed, and then I delivered, and I had an amazing, amazing, amazing boss, Rick Marini, who really advocated for me, and he believed in me and he supported me, and he was such a great mentor, and he also fought for me when he needed to and really had my back. And that, like, that promotion wouldn't have happened without him really putting himself on the line for it, too, I think. And so I think especially vp level promotions, often people have really, really, really high expectations of what that might look like.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:17:22]:
And I feel like the glass ceiling is more tangible when you, like, the higher that you get, right, it seems like, and the data shows this, right. Like, the higher you get, you see less and, and less representation at those levels.

Alice Hunsberger [00:17:35]:
Yeah. And it's, you know, it's tricky because, like, part of I think what makes me a good leader is my authenticity. Like, I have the worst poker face. You know what I'm saying? You know, that I'm telling the truth. That makes people trust me and believe me and like me, and it makes me a good communicator because I'm, people feel like it's actually really genuine, which it is. However, you know, when you get up to the point where you're having conversations with CEO's and board members or really important stakeholders or, you know, governments who are investigating the company that you work for, you know, like, there's a lot of regulators now that people have to deal with. And so you have to be able to play that game a little bit, which is tricky. But then in a way that when I do that, it also strips away what makes me me.

Alice Hunsberger [00:18:34]:
And so it's, it's a very tricky thing to navigate. And, like, feedback that I got during my fight to try to get promoted was that I was too much of a cheerleader for my team and that I needed to be able to be a little bit more straightforward about them. And I was like, yeah, but, like, I hired an amazing team. Like, my team was really good and they were doing really good work. And just like we were talking about, like, I feel really strongly that especially trust and safety folks, if you don't talk really loudly about the work that trust and safety people do every day, then people think they don't do anything. Like, if nothing bad is happening at your platform, then that is because there was a lot of hard work happening and happening quietly behind the scenes. And so I wasn't quiet about it.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:19:29]:
And that's why it's so hard to quantify the value of trust and safety.

Alice Hunsberger [00:19:33]:
Right.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:19:33]:
Because it's like, you're welcome. We talked about this on our podcast last week. It's like, you're welcome. Here's all the lawsuits that didn't happen this week. Like, you're welcome. Here's all the regulatory fines that didn't happen.

Alice Hunsberger [00:19:44]:
Yeah, but, you know, it is, it's like such a tricky balance because, like, if you aren't a cheerleader and an advocate, then your teen's work is and your work isn't going to get recognized. But then if you are, then you're called out on it as being, like, not having executive presence or whatever. And it's just like, for women especially, I think, or queer people or people of color, like, the expectations for professionalism get twisted in ways that are sometimes not helpful.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:20:18]:
No, 100%. And I think part of that I'm trying to remember, I read a book about this recently published by Harvard Business Review. I can't remember the name of it now, but I think part of the problem is that professional right now is largely defined as characteristics that, like, oh, white, straight, cisgendered man might have. We don't think about leadership. We don't think about compassion or empathy or patience or advocacy. Like, those aren't words that I think are traditionally associated with leadership, but I think they're hugely important. Like, I think for me, as a manager, as a team leader, emotional intelligence has been key because, like you said, this is not easy work. It can be taxing and showing up for your people every day and.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:21:01]:
And showing them that you care about them as entire people and not just content moderators or, you know, trust and safety professionals is so important. I feel like we could talk honestly. We should do a whole separate podcast on Dei. But for now, I want to make sure we get to some of these other questions. So you've worked for platforms, you've worked for bpos, for vendors. What's the biggest difference in your experience? What are these? What are the commonalities? And what was kind of a learning curve, maybe for you, going from a platform, from OkCupid or Grindr to partner hero.

Alice Hunsberger [00:21:36]:
For me, the transition to partner hero from Grindr was really smooth, mostly because I'd been working with partner hero for like, three and a half years already. So they were the BPO that I inherited when I moved to Grindr. They were already in place. And then I sort of expanded their scope of work a little bit after I started. But I knew them really well. So in a lot of ways, it was easy. And seeing things from the other side of the curtain is so interesting. The thing that's the most interesting and that, I think could make things easier for a lot of folks when they're working with vendor teams or if they're a vendor, working with companies is to really focus on what outcomes are the most important and why, and not just everyday KPI's, like quality scores, which, like you and I could get into a whole thing about how to do that and why it's really, really hard.

Alice Hunsberger [00:22:41]:
And I hope to write something on that soon, so I'll send it to you for review. You know, bpos are there to perform a very specific service. They're in a bit of a hard spot because you need to be deferential to what the platform says. And also good trust and safety workers, good moderators take a bit of initiative and are able to think creatively and are able to raise their hand and say, like, hey, this policy isn't clear enough. And if moderators understand why the policy exists and what the value statement is behind it, then they're more able to spot when there's a mismatch between the two. So one of the issues that I think often comes up is if a company's like, here's the policies make decisions, and then moderators moderate exactly to the policy and never question it, then they'll give themselves, like, a QA score. They'll get 99 out of 100 because they did everything perfectly. They'll pat themselves on the back and recycle to the next day.

Alice Hunsberger [00:23:55]:
And then meanwhile, the company is, like, looking at the outcomes or the customer complaints or whatever and saying, like, why didn't they get this right? Like, why? You know, maybe technically it's right, but, like, to the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. And then, you know, bpos are seen as kind of lazy or routine or fine, but not great. And so really, I think that, like, as much as platforms can invest in the continuing education and giving information, like insider information to managers and team leads at bpos, then the better that those managers and team leads can actually try to enforce the spirit of things as well as just the letter. Companies often go to bpos because they don't want to make those kinds of investments in moderators. It's, like, seen as a time suck. And one of the benefits of a BPO is that they take care of all the admin for you. They manage all the people. They do all the training, they do the QA.

Alice Hunsberger [00:25:01]:
But, yeah, I think that's one of the biggest issue.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:25:05]:
I kind of want to, I love our conversations because I think I want to talk about something. And then I'm like, no, this is really interesting, too, but I think it's so, again, I really like the responsibility that you keep bringing up, maybe not even intentionally, but that's kind of how it's landing on me. And I kind of want to talk about, like, okay, if you're a platform and you're outsourcing to a BPO, and obviously you want that relationship to be successful, what's on you? What's your responsibility as a platform to make that relationship successful? Because I think a lot of the time, it comes down to, I hired a BPO and it didn't go the way I wanted. And so they're bad, and I'm going to switch or fire or whatever, find a different solution. And I think, like, for me, unless it's really, I'm looking at data and it's like, okay, this, this one associate or this one moderator isn't performing so well. I kind of see that as a huge reflection on, like, me and my company, right, where it's like, what am I doing? Or what could I be doing differently to make this partnership successful? Yeah, I know I keep kind of circling back to this, but I just think it's really important. Like, what do you think platforms could be doing differently to make these partnerships more successful? You know, you mentioned quality is one of them, I think empowering moderators to feel like they can come to you and say, hey, your policy says this. I'm seeing this.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:26:29]:
How do you create a power dynamic where somebody feels comfortable coming to you? Because that's a huge value add. Like you said, if you're setting up this, if you're reinforcing a disparate power dynamic that's going to negatively impact your business. I'm just wondering, are there any other things platforms could do to be better partners? I think to bpos, the biggest thing.

Alice Hunsberger [00:26:52]:
That platforms can do is to not be lazy about the relationship. And if they're not getting what they need to be really, really clear and advocate really hard for what they do need that the BPO is not providing. In general, you know, there are some, like, terrible sweatshop bpos where people are just like, cycling in and out constantly. You're never going to get good performance from those people, but there are a lot that are, you know, fairly similar. If you're with a BPO that is decent but not great, then, you know, tell them, pay attention to what's going wrong, see if you can figure out why or what the patterns are, and then give them the resources that they need or demand that they create the resources that you need. Bpos hate to lose business. They're making money from keeping these programs. And so, you know, just like, you have to advocate really hard if you want to raise, you have to advocate really hard if you want better results.

Alice Hunsberger [00:28:06]:
Like, I think it's okay to go to a BPO and say, hey, look, I'm going to go to one of your competitors if you don't fix X, Y and Z. And here are the resources that I'm going to give you that'll make it successful. And here's what I'm hoping for. And how can we get there together? Be explicit about it instead of just like, seeing mediocre results and being like, well, this is frustrating, but, like, I guess there's nothing I can do, you know?

Sabrina Pascoe [00:28:36]:
Well, I think that's also such a great call out is like, as a platform, you might have the idea of, like, okay, I'm going to find the cheapest bpo that I can. And I think one that's morally and ethically questionable sometimes because it's like our. Are we pay?

Alice Hunsberger [00:28:52]:
Yeah, not sometimes. I would say every time.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:28:55]:
No, every time.

Alice Hunsberger [00:28:56]:
Yeah. Because, like, you know, when you're trying to get the cheapest possible price, what's the cost?

Sabrina Pascoe [00:29:01]:
What's the human cost of that?

Alice Hunsberger [00:29:04]:
Yeah. Like, bpos are very low margin businesses. I don't think people really realize that. It's not like a software company. Like when you're paying, when people labor is your product, there's not a giant markup that you can do on that. And the markup is for salaries like mine. Like, I'm, you know, they're like non billable salaries that no particular program is paying for. But, like, the profit margin on each individual moderator is going towards the overhead and the offices and the training people and the recruiters and, you know, all of that.

Alice Hunsberger [00:29:42]:
So when you drive everything down, you're not only driving down the individual salaries of the moderators, you're also driving down the infrastructure that can be put into place to support those moderators, to empower them, to keep training them and make them better, to innovate to, you know, all of these things that structurally will make a better company. So that's exactly right.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:30:07]:
Like, ethically, it's kind of, no, I'll just be blunt. It's terrible. It's ethically horrible. But also from a business perspective, and this is something that I think trust and safety professionals have to contend with, too, is there's the moral argument, which sometimes doesn't land on every audience, and then there's the business argument. And so morally terrible. But also from a business perspective, you're going to get what you paid for, essentially. Like, if you're not paying these workers sufficiently, you're going to see lots of attrition, which is going to impact your quality, which is going to result in customer complaints or potentially, like, negative press about your platform. So it's like both morally and fiscally, from a business perspective.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:30:47]:
Invest in your bpos. It benefits everybody, like, all the way around. I kind of love that lesson. So you've also worked mostly in dating platforms. What do you think is the biggest difference between dating platforms and other kind of platforms, like a social media platform? And you've also worked with, like, very niche platforms. Like, you've worked for one of the biggest platforms for LGBTQ users, at least in the US, if not. If not globally. I'm just curious what that emphasis on online dating has kind of taught you.

Alice Hunsberger [00:31:21]:
When I have conversations with people about trust and safety, I have this little triangle that I pull out and talk about all the time, which is a triangle between privacy, safety, and self expression. And pretty much every platform has to decide where on those axes they want to focus. And so you can't ever be all the way on one corner without compromising the other two. And so everybody needs to be able to balance all three of those things in some way or another. And then the nature of your user base, what country you're in, what kind of platform you are is going to determine, and the philosophy of the CEO and the founders is going to determine where you are on that. And so one thing that I think is really interesting about any platform that helps to facilitate in person meetings. So, like, I don't know, Airbnb and DoorDash, as well as dating platforms, the focus is often much more on safety than it is on self expression, because people need to feel safe meeting each other and having an interaction, and then the expression can happen in person, you know, like, if you want to talk about whatever. And so people who are often much more extreme in their self expression, sort of pushing the boundaries of what might be acceptable for community platforms, are less likely to build trust in the user base, especially for people who are going to meet in person.

Alice Hunsberger [00:33:01]:
So, you know, the policies that you have around self expression and political speech and things like that, for example, are going to be probably much more restrictive on these in person platforms, and then the harm level is much higher. So when you have humans meeting each other in person, all sorts of terrible things can happen, just like humans who meet at church or Boy Scouts or bars or, you know, it's just like humans meeting each other is a dangerous thing in general.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:33:33]:
That's an optimistic view on life. No, but it's true. Like, as trust and safety professionals, we know that. Yeah.

Alice Hunsberger [00:33:39]:
Yeah. So you have to sort of think about all of the nuances of in person harm reports, especially when you know, there's not any on platform proof. The same way that if it was like, an online speech type of report. So that's sort of different layer. Another thing that I think is really interesting, and this is sort of where Grindr is different from OkCupid. So you have two dating platforms, similar philosophies around freedom of expression, but Grindr was much more heavily focused on privacy than Okcupid and match group generally, which is much more focused on safety. And so you have these two, like. Like, big dating platforms.

Alice Hunsberger [00:34:29]:
But for the LGBTQ community, privacy is safety for a lot of folks. And you have governments in some areas who've decided that being queer should be criminalized. And so, like, literally having the app logo on your phone in some areas can get you arrested, which is, like, such a crazy trust and safety problem. Like, the fundamental existence of the app is a dangerous situation for some of your users. It's a wild thing to think about. And similarly, Grindr doesn't want any personal data about anybody, because having a database of every queer person in the world could be really misused, even if Grindr would never do anything bad with it, if it ever got into the wrong hands somehow, that's just a horrible risk. And, in fact, is why the us government ordered Grindr to be sold to a us based company from a chinese based company, because it was seen as too much of a risk to us people. So very, very different balances there between safety and privacy, whereas, like, on OkCupid, privacy wasn't seen as such a big concern, but safety much more so.

Alice Hunsberger [00:35:55]:
It's like the same three problems. Every platform has the same three things that they have to balance. And so in that way, dating apps are the same as anywhere else, but then the nuances are all always really, really different.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:36:07]:
It's so much to chew on, and it's especially for folks who have worked at social media platforms versus marketplaces or platforms, like you said, that facilitate these offline interactions. That is super different. And then it takes it up a whole other level when you're talking about marginalized communities and their privacy and their safety. I have two questions now coming off that. The first is, and this kind of came up on our episode last week, and I was like, I would love to talk to somebody who comes from a dating platform background about this. How do you kind of. I feel like this. It might seem obvious, but could also be really challenging.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:36:41]:
How do you distinguish between, like, flirting and sexual harassment in the context of online platforms? Are there certain cues or signals? Is it mostly based on user reports? I feel like, yeah, it's one of those things that a lot of people are like, oh, well, you know, it when you see it. But I hate. I hate that because that's not, like, a policy that you can scale enforce. So I just want to know if you had any thoughts on that.

Alice Hunsberger [00:37:06]:
Oh, my God. We could do an entire episode about this, too. You're picking some really good questions. It is really, really hard. I think it is. You know, the answer that is really hard to operationalize is that it all has to do with context. And context in a trust and safety context is really time consuming to do properly. So some.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:37:33]:
Not easy to automate. Not as easy to automate.

Alice Hunsberger [00:37:37]:
Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that's most frustrating about that is I have seen situations where people have reported somebody for harassment to the platform and then have also received, like, basically the exact same message from somebody else. And it started a really long, great conversation. And the difference between those two things is whether the person thought the person who messaged them was attractive or not. There's a really hot person who you're interested in, and you have things in common with them, and you think they're really cool, and they send you a message. Then it's like, ooh, this is really exciting. And if it's somebody who you think is gross and weird and they send you a message, then you're like, ugh. And you have this, like, visceral reaction, like, that's just how humans are.

Alice Hunsberger [00:38:33]:
But you can't operationalize that. You can't put that into a policy, because how is the person sending the message supposed to comply with that? They don't know if the other person is going to find them attractive beforehand or not. And so it's really, really tricky. And so, at Grindr, I spent. I rewrote the community guidelines twice. And in my second iteration, I spent a really long time trying to talk about what behavior we did want to see and how we did want people to talk to each other and approach each other.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:39:11]:
It's almost like you're basically educating adults about consent because they don't really get that education anywhere else.

Alice Hunsberger [00:39:17]:
Literally, that's what it was. And, you know, the other thing that's, like, very, very nuanced and difficult on dating apps, which is similar, is around telling people who they're looking for. So people are often, like, really discriminatory when they say what kind of partner they want or don't want. And sometimes it's, like, vaguely socially acceptable. Like saying, if 25 year old is like, I don't want messages from any old people, you're like, okay, that's, like, reasonable Christian.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:39:52]:
And I'm looking for somebody who shares my faith versus, like, just blatant, potentially racial discrimination or.

Alice Hunsberger [00:40:00]:
Right, but yeah, exactly. You know, the same type of message from, like, a marginalized person saying they only want to date people with the same background because only those people are going to understand their life experiences and feel safe is not the same as a white person saying only white people. And yet, how do you write a policy that is enforceable and able to be operationalized that makes that distinction? And then, especially on dating apps, when people's identities are so intersectional and so you can have situations where, like, for example, take age, which is, like, fairly non controversial in some situations, a power dynamic where you have a really young, like, a person in their twenties who's seen as, like, very desirable on a queer dating app saying they don't want to date any old people. That could make older people feel discriminated against and often does. And there's a lot of complaints that I've seen of older people saying, this is age discrimination. I feel disrespected, etcetera. But then there's also a power dynamic that flips the other way. There's younger people feeling preyed upon by older individuals.

Alice Hunsberger [00:41:18]:
There's also older people feeling like the younger people have more power in the situation because they're the hot, desirable young ones. And so then the young people get to. To choose whoever they want, and they're the ones with all the power who, like, are able to set the tone of the relationship. And so it's like, well, both sides have their own kinds of power, and the dynamic can flip really easily. And then if you add ethnicity on top of that or other, like, financial background on top of that, then it can become really, really messy.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:41:57]:
I think a lot of it comes down to, like, intent, but that's something that's, again, you can't codify that and you can't scale that. I want to make sure that I have one more question for you that I wanted to get to. You're like, please be gentle. I'm also this whole conversation, I will admit there's a huge gap in my knowledge because I went to high school with my husband. And so I don't, like, know a lot about the online dating apps, but I sympathize. There's, like, it seems really challenging. So we were talking about privacy. I was actually reading a book.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:42:30]:
There's a podcast for that, too, called tools and weapons by Brad Smith over at Microsoft. And there's a whole section in there on privacy and especially about the relationship between platforms and governments, right. On one hand, there are instances where it makes sense to disclose user data, for example, if there is a content relating to a terrorist threat or something like that. But on the other hand, especially when you're ahead, your platform is for marginalized communities or even. I live in Texas, and I'll be blunt, like, I'm afraid to use an app that tracks my menstrual cycle because I live in a state where you can be arrested for, or at least like, the perception that you might have had an abortion. I just kind of wanted to know, or kind of pick your brain a little bit on your thoughts with that. Like, how do you kind of find the middle ground between, like you said, security on one hand, and privacy on the other? And I know that could be a whole podcast episode itself, but I was just curious, like, when you were working for Grindr, for example, were there any kind of learnings on that?

Alice Hunsberger [00:43:37]:
There's one project that Grindr did before I started. There's an arm of Grindr called Grindr for quality, which is like the social justice arm of the company. It's really, really cool. They do amazing work. They did this project before I joined, which I loved, which was basically like, a holistic security guide for Grindr users. And it was written with a bunch of nonprofits and advocacy groups. And basically, like, I think platforms need to give users a set of tools for privacy and for security and for safety. Let people conduct their own risk assessments and decide which of those is most important to them.

Alice Hunsberger [00:44:28]:
And there might be trade offs, you know, so it could be something like, if you want to be completely anonymous on a dating app because you're not out to your family, and if they found out and saw you, they would be devastated and kick you out, and, you know, whatever, or you could be arrested or any number of other things, then privacy is going to be really, really important. But you then also have to understand that there are a lot of people who won't feel safe meeting with you because they're putting all of their information out there, and you're not putting any of your information out there. And so other people's risk assessments might be like, well, I'm, you know, out, and I live in San Francisco, and I feel really comfortable, and. And privacy is not a concern whatsoever, but safety is really a concern, and those two people's self interests clash with each other, and I think that's okay. Like, that's how life is. And everybody, you know, has to make their own choice about where they are. In the world right now and what their situation is and have a really wide set of tools available to make a those risk assessments. And I think that platforms often react to people's concerns and try to create these big, like, one size fits all schemes that look really good on paper but aren't going to work for people who are in these unique situations, especially marginalized users who are often not represented in, like, focus groups or in, you know, design sessions and things.

Alice Hunsberger [00:46:08]:
And so, so, yeah, I just, like, I don't think platforms can solve it for users. I think users have to be given the tools to be able to make those choices themselves. And I think platforms need to teach users how to conduct risk assessments and think about their own risk and their security risk, as well as their safety risk, as well as privacy, and understand what the trade offs for all of those things mean. And we're not having those conversations as a society. Like, everybody's just grandstanding about whichever of these issues is their pet issue and not understanding that that will compromise somebody else's safety. It's like conversations about child safety and encryption is like the big one right now. Yeah, it's like they're both good. Like, encryption is really important for some people, and child safety is also really important.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:47:05]:
And so, and that you can sometimes be conflicting. I love your answer so much because it wasn't at all what I was expecting. Like, I thought you were either going to, like, say something about governments or something about platforms, and you were like, it's actually about neither of that. It's about empowering the user, which I think isn't talked about enough, which is great, or which is terrible. This, sorry, I was going to say, having you on the podcast has been great. Not empowering users is a problem. But anyways, thank you so much, Alice. This has been, I love chatting with you.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:47:38]:
Like, it's just we always go into these, like, super interesting ethical questions, but I think you also do a great job of grounding them and people's, like, real world lived experiences. And I just really appreciate your time. So thank you so much for coming on.

Alice Hunsberger [00:47:51]:
Thank you. It was really, really fun to.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:47:54]:
You're welcome back anytime. So thanks so much, Alice. Appreciate it.

Alice Hunsberger [00:47:59]:
You.

Sabrina Pascoe [00:48:02]:
Thanks for listening to click to trust. For more on online trust and safety, check the show notes for this episode, where we'll also post links to Alice's podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to never miss an episode, and we'll see you next time on click to trust.