Trust and Safety (T&S) work has been standing between the risks and harms of technology and the people who are impacted in the absence of regulatory oversight or enforcement structures. However, even with governance mechanisms in place, T&S is still needed to implement guidelines, thwart bad actors, and bring their expertise to the table before a powerful new feature or product is rolled out with potentially harmful consequences.

Moderating online content was the original focus of what has come to be called Trust & Safety. In addition to responding to inappropriate content, the work now includes sanctioning bad actors, writing and (rewriting) community guidelines and policies, mining data to detect trends, and working with product, legal, and other teams within their companies to mitigate risks and harms.