Responsibilities

Team Intro The Risk & Response Team for TikTok USDS is a multi-disciplinary team that handles risk detection, prevention and handling in the United States. The team is dedicated to maintaining a safe and secure online environment for users by actively monitoring and responding to emergent threats, ensuring compliance with legal regulations, and addressing real-life implications of online content. As a Validations Specialist, you will support USDS Risk & Response teams with content and account review, analysis, and enforcement; test and improve threat detection logic; and support testing and implementation of new tools and processes Our Validations Team performs a critical function that supports our efforts to address objectionable or disturbing content. Content that the Validations Specialist interacts with includes images, video, and text related to every-day life, but it can also include (but is not limited to) bullying; hate speech; child abuse; sexual assault; torture; bestiality; self-harm; suicide; and murder. It is possible that this role will be exposed to harmful content on a daily basis. This team must be comfortable occasionally working unusual business hours (e.g., Tuesday-Saturday or Sunday-Thursday), working late night shifts, and also providing shift coverage during crisis events. In order to enhance collaboration and cross-functional partnerships, among other things, at this time, our organization follows a hybrid work schedule that requires employees to work in the office 3 days a week, or as directed by their manager/department. We regularly review our hybrid work model, and the specific requirements may change at any time. Responsibilities: Expertise in TikTok Policy - Interpret TikTok's Community Guidelines and make enforcement decisions based on them - Stay current on key workflow changes and policy updates that are regularly cascaded - Leverage unique vantage point to help bridge gaps between Policy, Moderation, and Trust & Safety teams in order to improve policy and process Content & Account Reviews - Conduct meticulous review of large volumes of potentially high harm content and accounts, and make enforcement decisions based on Community Guidelines - Based on large scale reviews, identify and capture new intelligence signals to improve overall detection capabilities; drive real-time insights to leadership and cross-functional partners across Incident Management, Policy, Investigations, Comms, Legal, and other teams - Partner with subject matter experts and analysts to develop methodologies for reviewing large volumes of potentially violative content; action content at scale based on high confidence reviews and analysis - Support research content analysis through accurate labeling and annotating content--including written text, spoken language, images, audio, videos, and accounts--in order to create accurate classifiers for increased precision of models and improved recall rates for problematic content Data-driven decision making - Utilize data plus internal tools and systems to help Trust & Safety teams analyze trends, identify patterns, and share insights that support process improvements - Share data and insights that illuminate policy gaps and grey areas, all with the intention of improving policy to enable clear, scalable enforcement - Test new tools and analysts' hypotheses, and provide precise feedback and recommendations based on data Detection Engineering Support - Partner with Trust & Safety analysts to test and improve threat detection models - Identify intelligence (signals) that improve analyst-built detections - Support hypothesis testing through validating detections in the development phase Investigate Intelligence Collection Requests - Review, investigate, and process sensitive intelligence leads with high quality, accuracy, and speed - Conduct deep-dive investigations leveraging subject matter expertise, policy, tooling, and data to thoroughly assess and validate potential and emerging threats on platform - Leverage internal tools and queries to conduct "sweeps" designed to identify remove violative content at scale - Provide summaries/reports documenting results of deep dive investigations Project Management - Ensure that action items identified as the result of root cause analyses are escalated to the appropriate cross-functional partners for remediation - Trouble-shoot internal tooling and programs; support testing and iteration of new tool launches - Manage and coordinate requests from cross-functional partners; ensure requests are completed in a timely manner - Support Quality Assurance initiatives to assess the team's enforcement decisions

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications - Bachelor's degree or at least 1 year of experience in Trust & Safety, Operations, Content Moderation, or as a research assistant - Strategic critical thinker with analytical and creative problem-solving skills - Demonstrated experience as a collaborative team player; you understand the importance of proactive problem identification and covering for your colleagues when they need you most - Strong communication and writing skills - Ability to work independently and reliably under tight timeframes in a fast-paced environment - Strong ability to multi-task and manage multiple competing priorities while working seamlessly across teams - Open minded thinking about people, cultures, backgrounds, and threats Preferred Qualifications - Experience in online investigations, analysis, escalations, or operations, content policy, project management, or equivalent relevant fields, such as content moderation or model labeling - Ability to thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous environments, prioritize work, and make data-driven decisions - Technical aptitude for learning complex tools or systems required for daily operations - Experience dealing with complex, no-right-answer problems; demonstrated critical thinking skills and interest in ethics and/or policy - Highly organized with experience prioritizing multiple functions and tasks while managing their work time efficiently without compromising quality - Analytical-thinking and problem-solving experience - Knowledge of social media challenges and sensitivity to safety, regulatory, or compliance issues - Experience driving high-priority issues through process of resolution - Your ability to work in a high tempo environment, adapt, respond to day-to-day challenges of the role. - Your resilience and commitment to self-care to manage the emotional demands of the role.

Job Information