Last minute tips to help safeguard election integrity

I'm Alice Hunsberger. Trust & Safety Insider is my weekly rundown on the topics, industry trends and workplace strategies that trust and safety professionals need to know about to do their job.

This week, I'm thinking about what we can do in the final days before the US election. We've got some actionable resources for everyone (it's not too late to help secure democracy!) and two new, original resources to share.

As always, get in touch if you'd like your questions answered or just want to share your feedback. Here we go!

— Alice

P.S. I have a personal goal of getting to 10k followers on LinkedIn by the end of the year (I'm at 8,900 - so close!) so I'm shamelessly asking you to follow or connect with me there if you haven't already.

Today's edition of T&S Insider is in partnership with Checkstep, the all-in-one Trust & Safety Platform

Struggling to centralize your Trust & Safety operations? Join us on November 12th at 5pm Western European Time / 9am PST for an interactive fireside chat with Guillaume Bouchard (CEO, Checkstep) and Izzy Neis (Head of Digital, ModSquad). We'll share with you five key lessons we've learned from helping leading platforms on how to build scalable, structured moderation systems.

We’ll cover:
- The essentials of a structured, scalable moderation framework
- How AI can help scale and improve moderator experience and productivity
- How to effectively balance AI with human oversight
- The role that CRM connections play in the effectiveness of a moderation strategy
- Shaping what moderation success looks like from a KPI and delivery perspective

Preparing for post-election turbulence

The US Presidential election is just over a week away. Watch for two phases: misinformation about candidates before election day (5th November), and misinformation about the election results after voting.

We're in the last stage of election preparedness so hopefully most of the groundwork has been laid already. But you can never be too prepared so here are some last-minute suggestions and resources to bolster your efforts in the final few days:

For workers at platforms

Social media platforms certainly play a part in enabling the spread of misinformation, but they also have great potential to be part of the solution.

For platforms that take election integrity seriously, strategies typically include sharing factual voting information, thoughtful policy writing, limiting suspicious content distribution and transparency around AI-generated content. Much of this will be underpinned by ongoing engagement with civil society; the Integrity Institute's elections integrity program has solid advice on how best to do this.

While much of this will/should have happened already, it's still not too late to invest in election integrity work. Katie Harbath of Anchor Change and Nicole Schneidman of Protect Democracy co-authored this excellent piece on how tech companies can help secure the election after Election Day. I encourage you to read the whole thing, but they highlight four things that can happen now:

1. Establish clear escalations processes
2. Engage with external stakeholders
3. Monitor and enforce on-platform activity
4. Direct users to authoritative information.

I'd add one further important piece: don't underestimate your frontline team, and make sure they have the resources they need to make informed decisions. We know that we're going to see new misinformation pop up, we just don't know what it will be about yet. Your frontline team will see it first, and if they're well trained and resourced, with clear escalation paths, you'll find out about new issues quickly.

To this end, Luiza Fernandes on my team at PartnerHero has put together an election integrity guide for frontline moderators - if you're a moderator, or manage frontline teams, I hope it's helpful.

For media

It's more important than ever to have trusted sources that are committed to accurate information as the election process happens.

Candyce Kelshall, Vice Chair of the Canadian Intelligence Network, has created a comprehensive Election Interference and Information Integrity Handbook for Newsrooms. It covers basics like outlining what misinformation and disinformation are, but also includes a checklist for journalists to go through when verifying information and a great list of tools that I can see being hugely helpful for T&S teams as well as journalists.

For civil society, academics, and researchers

Frankly, this is the area I'm least qualified to give advice on, but I can tell you this: your work is so important. It may be frustrating to create best practices and not necessarily have the ability to ensure their implementation at platforms, but we need you to kick up a fuss and hold platforms to high standards.

While you do this, please also remember that the folks who are directly working on T&S and election integrity at platforms are on the same side as you. Even if a platform as a whole isn't doing everything you think they should, there absolutely are people fighting the good fight on the inside. I encourage you to see if you can speak with these people directly and support where you can.

For everyone

Ultimately, I believe that everyone has a role to play in protecting election integrity and democracy.

One thing that anyone can do is to “pre-bunk” friends and family about the election process. If people expect uncertainty ahead and know how to find reliable information, they’re less likely to get swept up in misinformation after the result is announced.

That's why I put together this quick guide to misinformation busting and trustworthy election resources.

It’s a non-partisan doc that gives basic information on spotting misinformation, fact-checking, and finding trustworthy election process resources. I’ve already shared this info on LinkedIn and my local community forum, and it’s been well-received. If you’re in the US, or have friends or family who are, feel free to do the same, or to create your own guide to share.

Also worth reading

Five Decisions Illustrate How Section 230 Is Fading Fast (TechDirt)
Why? Lost in all the elections talk these past few weeks is what on earth is happening with legal decisions around Section 230. At this point, it's hard to make sense of it all, but luckily TechDirt has full coverage as always.

Technology and Trust & Safety Report (UK Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology, )
Why? The UK government interviewed T&S leaders to take a look at the state of T&S technology today, and potential future opportunities. They were specifically interested in opportunities for UK companies, but this is a fascinating look at the field overall.

Content moderator coping strategies: associations with psychological distress, secondary trauma and wellbeing (Center for Abuse and Trauma Studies)
Why? Research looked at how content moderators cope with trauma, and found that being able to speak with peers was the most helpful coping strategy. Fascinatingly, they found that simply having wellness programs didn't necessarily help moderators, and that more holistic workplace approaches to wellbeing were necessary. (More of my thoughts here).

T&S events calendar and 12 tips to kickstart your Trust & Safety career (Jeff Dunn, VP of T&S at Hinge)
Why? Two new resources to help T&S professionals from the prolific Jeff Dunn.

Meta’s Israel flagger under fire, the ‘reluctant regulator’ and Swisher on stage

The week in content moderation - edition #268

Everything in Moderation*Ben Whitelaw