Hi!

I'm Yoel Roth, PhD.

I care about building technology that's resilient to threats and helps people and communities connect safely and authentically.

I’m currently a Technology Policy Fellow at UC Berkeley, and a Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. My research is focused on how to address collective security challenges on distributed and decentralized social media platforms. I’m also working on a book project about the field of trust and safety, and how technology companies navigate complex policy and governance challenges.

At Twitter, I was the Head of Trust & Safety, leading Twitter’s content moderation, integrity, and platform security efforts — including policy development, threat investigation, product, design, research, and operations.

Before joining Twitter, I received my PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. My research and teaching examined the technical, policy, business, and cultural dynamics of social networking and dating apps at the dawn of the “App Store” age.

Need to reach me?

For press and speaking engagements, reach out to speaking (at) yoyoel (dot) com.

I'm taking on new consulting and advisory roles at this time; please reach out if you're building or scaling a trust and safety function and could use advice or guidance. I love helping founders, T&S leaders, and organizations get ahead of complex safety and security issues. You can contact me by email at yoel (at) yoyoel (dot) com.

Writing and research

• 24 March 2023, "How Forcing TikTok to Completely Separate its US Operations Could Actually Undermine National Security," TechDirt.
  
• 18 November 2022, "I Was the Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter. This Is What Could Become of It," New York Times.
  
• 8 February 2023, Testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
  
• 9 January 2023, "Evidence-Based Misinformation Interventions: Challenges and Opportunities for Measurement and Collaboration," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
  
• 19 May 2022, "Introducing our crisis misinformation policy," Twitter Blog. (Introducing a new policy addressing misinformation during moments of armed conflict and other humanitarian crises.)
• 2 December 2021, "Expanding access beyond information operations," Twitter Blog. (3-year retrospective on IO data-sharing, and launching the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium.)
  

Press and speaking

• 29 November 2022, On With Kara Swisher: Yoel Roth and the Crisis at Twitter, at Knight Foundation Informed 2022.
  
• 26 May 2022, "Formulating a rules-based order for the digital age: Big tech in the spotlight," NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence Dialogues (panel discussion).
• 2 December 2021, "Tackling online harassment of women in public life," Annenberg Public Policy Center (panel discussion).
• 25 August 2021, "Deepfakes, Trust & International Security - Governance Issues and Responses," United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) Innovations Dialogue. (YouTube) (Panel discussion)
• 25 August 2020, "Are we ready? Foreign interference, disinformation, and the 2020 election," Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab (panel discussion).
  
• 2 March 2020, "Twitter's Head of Site Integrity, on Fighting Election Disinformation," NPR All Things Considered.
• 27 February 2020, "Election info ops: Stories from the social media frontlines," RSA 2020.