This week Laura dives into the world of tech and Trust & Safety. Trust and Safety refers to teams that work to prevent online harm. This can include anything from predatory behavior like child sexual abuse and violence to mental health crises such as suicidal ideation. As technology evolves, Trust and Safety teams are always evolving to combat new threats and care for those in crisis. Some of the content within this episode is detailed and explicit.
Laura is joined by Maggie Cook, an expert in this field. They discuss Maggie’s pioneering work at Facebook and her move to Door Dash (all opinions are her own). They talk about their experiences collaborating in an effort to mitigate harm to employees as a result of exposure to traumatic content. Maggie offers listeners powerful advice on how to know when it’s time to go and shares a grounding tenet that if we’re facing something hard, we definitely shouldn’t do it alone. Any of us who engage with anything online – ever – owe Maggie and her colleagues our gratitude.
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About Maggie
Maggie Cook has spent the last 12 years building a career in Trust and Safety, a relatively new profession that typically refers to teams at tech companies who ensure people using their platforms and services stay safe. She began her career at Facebook (now Meta) in 2010, where she worked in various safety roles during her ten years with the company focusing on safety for the most vulnerable populations. With a primary focus on child exploitation, she also contributed to prevention in suicide, self harm, eating disorders, nonconsensual nude imagery, and physical violence. After taking a year-long hiatus to road trip with her dog, Radio, and husband, Caleb, she began working at DoorDash in November of 2021 with a similar focus on critical issues.
She is passionate about wellness in the face of trauma and holds a particular interest in contributing to systems that support the trust and safety profession as a whole.
In her downtime, Maggie spends as much time outside and offline as possible, beating the Texas heat in the nearest body of water.