Sympathy and Jobs for Twitter Disinformation Experts
Viewing fake and toxic information as a potentially costly liability, companies in tech and beyond are looking to hire people who can control it .
In the weeks following Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, dozens of people responsible for policing dangerous or inaccurate information about the service posted on LinkedIn that they quit or lost their jobs. Their statements sparked a flood of condolences - and attempts to recruit them.
Overtures came from rival tech services, retailers, consulting firms, government contractors and other organizations who want to use former Twitter employees – and those recently laid off from Meta and the Stripe payments platform – to track and combat false and toxic information on the Internet.
Ania Smith, the managing director of TaskRabbit, the Ikea-owned marketplace for construction workers, commented on a former Twitter employee's post this month that he should consider apply for a position as a product manager, working in part on trust and security tools.
"The war for talent has truly been outstanding over the past 24 months in the field of technology ogie," Ms Smith said in an interview. "So when we see layoffs happening, whether it's at Twitter, Meta, or other companies, it's definitely an opportunity to pursue some of the very high caliber talent that we know they're hiring."< /p>
She added that making users feel safe on the TaskRabbit platform was a key part of her company's success.
"We can't really continue to grow without investing in a trust and security team," she said.
The threats posed by conspiracy theories, deceptively manipulated media, hate speech, child abuse, fraud and other online harms have been studied for years by academic researchers, groups think tanks and government analysts.But increasingly, tech companies hnology and elsewhere view this abuse as a potentially costly liability, especially as more work is done online and regulators and customers demand stronger safeguards.
On LinkedIn, under posts praising Twitter's work on elections and content moderation, comments promoted overtures at TikTok (threat researcher), DoorDash (responsible Community Policy) and Twitch (Responsible for Trust and Safety Incidents). Managers from other companies have solicited suggestions for names to add to recruiting databases. Google, Reddit, Microsoft, Discord and ActiveFence - a four-year-old company that said last year it had raised $100 million and could analyze more than three million sources of malicious chatter in all languages - also have job offers. /p>
The field of trust and security barely existed a decade ago, and the talent pool is still restricted, said Lisa Kaplan, founder of Alethea, a company that uses early detection technology to help customers protect themselves against misinformation campaigns. The three-year-old company has 35 employees; Ms Kaplan said she hoped to add 23 more by mid-2023 and was trying to recruit former Twitter employees. — a "digital reality that will eventually impact all businesses". Customers who once employed armed guards to stand outside data rooms, then built online firewalls to block hackers, are now calling companies like Alethea...
Viewing fake and toxic information as a potentially costly liability, companies in tech and beyond are looking to hire people who can control it .
In the weeks following Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, dozens of people responsible for policing dangerous or inaccurate information about the service posted on LinkedIn that they quit or lost their jobs. Their statements sparked a flood of condolences - and attempts to recruit them.
Overtures came from rival tech services, retailers, consulting firms, government contractors and other organizations who want to use former Twitter employees – and those recently laid off from Meta and the Stripe payments platform – to track and combat false and toxic information on the Internet.
Ania Smith, the managing director of TaskRabbit, the Ikea-owned marketplace for construction workers, commented on a former Twitter employee's post this month that he should consider apply for a position as a product manager, working in part on trust and security tools.
"The war for talent has truly been outstanding over the past 24 months in the field of technology ogie," Ms Smith said in an interview. "So when we see layoffs happening, whether it's at Twitter, Meta, or other companies, it's definitely an opportunity to pursue some of the very high caliber talent that we know they're hiring."< /p>
She added that making users feel safe on the TaskRabbit platform was a key part of her company's success.
"We can't really continue to grow without investing in a trust and security team," she said.
The threats posed by conspiracy theories, deceptively manipulated media, hate speech, child abuse, fraud and other online harms have been studied for years by academic researchers, groups think tanks and government analysts.But increasingly, tech companies hnology and elsewhere view this abuse as a potentially costly liability, especially as more work is done online and regulators and customers demand stronger safeguards.
On LinkedIn, under posts praising Twitter's work on elections and content moderation, comments promoted overtures at TikTok (threat researcher), DoorDash (responsible Community Policy) and Twitch (Responsible for Trust and Safety Incidents). Managers from other companies have solicited suggestions for names to add to recruiting databases. Google, Reddit, Microsoft, Discord and ActiveFence - a four-year-old company that said last year it had raised $100 million and could analyze more than three million sources of malicious chatter in all languages - also have job offers. /p>
The field of trust and security barely existed a decade ago, and the talent pool is still restricted, said Lisa Kaplan, founder of Alethea, a company that uses early detection technology to help customers protect themselves against misinformation campaigns. The three-year-old company has 35 employees; Ms Kaplan said she hoped to add 23 more by mid-2023 and was trying to recruit former Twitter employees. — a "digital reality that will eventually impact all businesses". Customers who once employed armed guards to stand outside data rooms, then built online firewalls to block hackers, are now calling companies like Alethea...
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