Big Tech Ditched Trust and Safety. Now Startups Are Selling It Back As a Service
WiredMassive layoffs across the tech sector have hit trust and safety teams hard over the past year. The layoffs at X inspired other platforms to do the same, argues Sabhanaz Rashid Diya, founding director at tech policy think tank the Tech Global Institute and a former member of Meta’s policy team. These companies, many of them founded and staffed by people with Big Tech pedigrees, let platforms “buy rather than build” trust and safety services, says Talha Baig, a former Meta engineer whose startup, Sero AI, recently received backing from accelerator Y Combinator. “There is a lot more labor out on the marketplace, and there’s also a lot more customers willing to buy that labor.” But experts warn that outsourcing trust and safety also means outsourcing responsibilities to teams with no power to change the way platforms actually work. Sahar Massachi, a former member of Meta’s civic integrity team and cofounder and executive director of the Integrity Institute think tank, worries that by outsourcing key functions, platforms may be undermining their ability to improve products.
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