When Congress set out to battle sex trafficking, what we got instead was a law, FOSTA/SESTA, whose main impact was to shut down sexual content online. In conjunction with a tightening of financial industry rules, many adult content creators and artists have been left virtually homeless. Providing refuge to these creators, while handling compliance challenges, is my job as Head of Trust & Safety at a new adult content hosting company.

When a growing social coding platform was exploited with image based abuse, it was unprepared to prevent its recurrence. In response, I developed a complete trust and safety workflow for this business, including a risk analysis, new content moderation guidelines, onboarding materials, and design documents for new tools. With new image moderation and reporting capabilities in place, the company is now better prepared to face future incidents.

A niche adult-oriented social network faced disruption to its business when a payment intermediary introduced more restrictive content rules. I addressed this challenge by systematically reviewing and addressing the platform’s compliance shortfalls, overhauling its content guidelines, producing its first transparency report, and establishing connections with a CSAM identification vendor.