Nurturing the Wellbeing of Superhero Moderators in Gaming

Speaker 1

So welcome, everyone, to today’s webinar. We are joined again by a number of our friends over at Keyword Studios. So today I have with me Sabine Ernst, Gio, and also Mafalda. And I would love to give you guys an opportunity to introduce yourselves. Tell us what your role is at Keywords, how long you’ve worked in the industry, and how long specifically in gaming. So maybe start with you, Sabine.

Thank you so much, Michelle, for having me this morning. I have been with Keywords for a good one and a half years now, working in the trust and safety department, responsible for creating superhero well-being programs. In the industry, I’ve been for eight years working in tech, started here in Kelowna at a little startup back then, two had.

We were then acquired by Xbox, Microsoft, and then I moved, yeah, one and a half years ago to Keywords. Very excited to be here. Thanks so much, Sabine. Gio, do you want to go next?

Speaker 2

Yes. Hi everyone. I’m Gio. I’m a superhero here at Keywords Studios Montreux. I’m a gaming commercial community moderator and I’ve been here for eight months.

Speaker 1

Okay, and last but not least, Mufalda. Hello, so my name is Mufalda Prayra. I’m originally from Portugal and I’ve been working for the gaming industry for the past five years. I’m the newcomer to the trust and safety. I’ve been a senior team lead for player engagement, previously player support for keywords. Happy to be here.

Lovely, we’ve got great diverse groups sitting in front of us even from keywords so I’ll just dive into our first question. So in the last webinar, I had briefly discussed how moderation teams in the gaming industry have a slightly different scope of practice than moderation teams on social media platforms or where there’s kind of other user-generated content that is being put out.

So from your perspectives, could you share just some of the unique challenges that are faced in moderating gaming platforms specifically?

Speaker 2

Yes, so I guess it’s a very interesting question to start. To me, our players, they are totally focused on their games and their own universe. So I feel that one of our daily challenges here is understanding these numerous narratives they bring in different game forums, and there are a lot. So even though you like and know about games and consoles, you still have a lot to learn.

In order to better understand what they are bringing to the forum, they may talk about a specific feature, a new skin, a new season that just started, a new release, or a problem they are facing. So the topics are huge, and the more you get into it, the better you moderate properly. And I always keep here with me some available websites and sources to access and research.

But another very interesting challenge is the gaming language, something that I’m in love with. They have their own jargon to communicate, their own lexicon when they are expressing themselves, which can make our job a little bit more challenging. And we also have great online sources to research if we don’t know. And we also build here our own glossary here.

So of course, over time, the game is narrative, you learn and understand more these new terms. But they are creating new ones all the time. So the main point here is whether the term does not refer to any derogatory or disrespectful meaning.

But also I’d like to highlight all these skills as a superhero we bring to the table when we are moderating hearing our data routine to face these challenges, like being aware about community guidelines, linguistic competences, once you understand the different languages, awareness of bias, ability to engage with technologies we deal with here, identify and report threats to cultural knowledge, legislation, and understand different topics and worldwide events.

So as our activity here has a cognitive overload due to repetitive actions we take daily, we also need to be aware of ourselves while moderating, which can be a challenge too. So to me, the best approach is we dive into their universe and it makes my job more pleasurable.

Speaker 1

Um, and my father Sabine. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah Definitely.

I’ll I’ll take over from the community perspective because I am not just a newcomer to the trust and safety Team, but also we are starting a new project Uh, that is a cutting-edge streaming slash gaming community that is just developing now So the challenge is not just to you know, keep the city safe It’s also to keep it thriving and generate this new Uh kind of vibe within this new development and also nurturing the guidelines that the client sees fit So we’re all combining efforts Into a new sort of dynamic when it comes to moderating streaming slash a gaming platform So very very different from other social media platforms, but now we’re seeing new things.

So Um as a newcomer to the trust and safety community, this is wild So how much things move so quickly? So that’s the the point I wanted to bring in Um, how about you Sabine?

I think you and uh Joe Manley covered uh pretty much everything There’s one thing that comes to mind though, um an additional challenge or a unique challenge So to say from my conversations with the superheroes Is also, uh being the face of the game Yet, uh, you didn’t create it. And what do I mean by that? You get a lot of feedback, right?

Some, uh players complain about maybe a feature and so that unique position as should I call it? You’re really like a mentor between well you you want to You want to excite them about the game, right?

Yet you also want to be very understanding and sometimes maybe you even feel their pain, but yet Um, you are not able to change anything and you also you haven’t been uh in in Part of the product process so to say so that just came to mind also as an additional challenge that can appear that’s quite um Like unique in the sense of I don’t like we’ve worked a lot with kind of social media companies and like e-commerce kind of like online platforms in that sense and not so much with the gaming industry and Even to my ears that sounds very new that there’s much more sort of player engagement even on like features and products side Rather than just uh egregious content coming up Because a lot of the content moderators that i’ve spoken with they they don’t really engage with the youth in that way that maybe Your kind of superheroes would So, um, you’re right in um, it would maybe happen more in community management, but I can also just the superheroes Giovanni maybe speak into it.

Um, do you engage or do you uh, like I I guess you read a lot about that feedback But uh, do you then engage or do you pass it on to the community management or what’s the process there? Maybe I can

Speaker 2

Yes, actually, I do like to engage because, as I said, once we are in their universe, we understand them better. You know what I mean? Of course, the way that they interact with each other, and of course, the topics, even though they are talking about games, they bring different topics inside it.

So of course, if we think, for example, about politics, sometimes they bring politics inside the game discussion. They bring, for example, gender discussions, pronounce discussions. Of course, I’m relating to language because it’s something that I like to observe.

But yes, I like to read and understand how they are engaging there, how they are communicating, and of course, how they are changing the industry, too. So that’s why, in my opinion, not only gaming commercial community moderators should observe this, but also developers, UX designers, to see how they behave online.

It is very interesting to understand, of course, we think about the Gen Z, but we have like so many generations there in the same place, communicating, sharing experiences, sharing their problems in a way that they are looking for the same thing, playing and have fun. So that’s the idea of when I think about media and behavior, how I understand them through languages and through their interactions.

Speaker 1

So interesting. So we suppose in terms of things like well-being offerings, how do you feel that keywords and other companies can encourage utilization in a meaningful way for your superheroes and for anyone else who has access to those? And you know, we’re talking about not just attending services, but truly getting a kind of meaningful benefit in engaging with those services.

Speaker 2

Nice. So I started here last June, and during my training, I learned a lot about our well-being offerings. However, to me, the best way of encouraging superheroes to use them is to keep informing them of what we have here, something that I see here inside of my team through our channels.

But even though we have our monthly newsletter and SharePoint to inform people about it, a really great strategy would be to invest in testimonials, asking people who have accessed the app, for example, to share their experience, to show how easy it is to use it to.

So in my point of view, once we listen to someone who has already tried or bought something, we feel more encouraged to try and get it. And in my training, I also learned about a very interesting document that is our resilience armor. It’s a personal document in which we consult if we need to find ways to feel better instantly. So we know that it can be difficult to remember what makes us feel safe.

And that’s the purpose of it. So to build it, we rate how we care about ourselves, rating some areas like psychological, emotional, physical. Then we check our coping mechanisms. And in the end, we have enough resources to build it with things to remember when we are in distress. And I have it written here and also copy my computer so I can access any time.

And this document to me is part of our journey here since our day one. So it’s very important and I really like it to to check and sometimes update it to use whenever I need.

Speaker 1

nice little personalized toolkit.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I learned it in Sabine.

Speaker 1

I would like to just clarify and go next to mention that I am not a superhero, I’m actually a sidekick. But because it is quite the dynamic to be shy and not want to, you know, come out of the dark, the vigilantes here, I’m going to be their voice when it comes to showing how much I’ve experienced that keywords, the difference when it comes to nurturing the well-being of our teams.

And that is my role right here. It’s to make sure that the program is being followed. And it couldn’t come at a better time this question, because we are already meeting regularly to make sure that we are improving, that we are adapting, and that we are providing the best environment for the superheroes to thrive while they protect the city.

And one of the key elements that I’ve learned very early, since I arrived at Keywords, is the concept of emotional equity. The fact that there’s this relationship between the leads, the program, and the superheroes, and then our users, that is definitely the biggest challenge, which is to make sure that all these tools are accessible, that they are being used, that they’re not enforced.

And the sidekick’s role is just to make sure that everyone is aware that these things exist, that the feedback is coming from all areas, and it is circulating not just between the users, but also the creators of the community, the clients.

And so it has been such a pleasure to see how the open communication fits within trying to adjust to everyone’s individual needs, because there’s no such thing as one size fits all. So constantly just renewing the program and making sure people are heard, and the voices that matter really are here, the superheroes, because they’re the ones dealing with this kind of work.

So just wanted to clear that up. No, but that’s, it’s an amazing perspective, right? Because even at Zevo, we say all the time, you know, anyone who’s a team leader or a supervisor, they’re the frontline defense when it comes to superheroes’ wellbeing, right?

When moderators are in distress, the first person that they’re going to go to to say, I need a break, or I need to like take a bit of wellness time, or I need to be taken off a particular workflow, I’m having a hard time, the first person they’re going to is their manager.

So if their manager understands that that emotional impact could come up, and then know how to direct them to the right support, and encourages everyone through that kind of open door policy, and through that psychological safety, that’s the best way that we can protect our moderators. Definitely. And I know Sabina has a lot to say about the program, because we’ve been giving her a lot of feedback.

Yeah, you’re actually mentioning one important part there, Mafala, is that feedback loop to create that culture of discussion, feedback, right? Because from a manager, from a program manager perspective, I can say I am always asking myself, right, what is a meaningful way?

And you mentioned it before, Michelle, it’s not just providing the tool, but actually implementing a routine, and not taking, which Mafala mentioned before, the one size fits all approach, right?

Speaker 1

So that is always the first question that I ask myself. Secondly, it is the buy in from the leadership team. That is key. If it doesn’t work for the leadership team, who are leading the superheroes, right, then what’s the point? And so that is where we have ongoing discussions, meetings. So what is the project that your team is working on? Are some questions? What needs do we need to address?

Does it work culturally? We have teams sitting in different countries, right? In some countries, an open conversation is preferred. In other countries, the culture requires a more, maybe in a written form, right? So how do we perceive that feedback? How do we create that safe environment? Talking about stigma that still exists in many cultures, and even in our own, we have to be aware of it.

And so yeah, those are questions that we discuss with the leadership team and making sure that there is a feedback loop so that the feedback comes back to us. And sometimes, yes, I do get the feedback, Sabine, this just won’t work with my team. Okay, now let’s make a new solution, right? Third is really… understanding the why, behind the tools and the resources and providing that leadership support.

So making sure we really understand why do we implement that? What maybe problem or challenge do we want to address? And then last but not least is really don’t force lead by example. And I had leadership teams coming back to me, they do an amazing job. And one even said, you know what I have one superhero, they just don’t want to talk.

They implemented in their one and ones also to touch on mental health, that they don’t want to talk. So I just asked the simple question, is there something positive that happened since we met last and even there, right? That is also part of mental health. Think about something positive about something you can be grateful for.

And that is, yeah, the fourth point that we want to make sure that we don’t force anybody.

But still encourage them leading by example, doing exercises ourselves, implementing practices ourselves and even sharing them like, and I’m sharing that, you know, right our the head of trust and safety department, she shares with the superheroes, she has a personal relationship with the superheroes, and she shares how her day is going at times.

And so that to me is leading by example, and being vulnerable ourselves to a certain degree. And look, yeah, 100%, you know, there’s, there’s so much in terms of getting people to engage with services, but there’s even just so much in just having those conversations and fostering that environment where people feel safe to say, I’m having a tough day, it’s just not great for me today, right?

Or to say that I’m having a really successful day, I feel great. Because like you’re saying, that’s also part of mental health, right, being able to celebrate your successes.

So it leads me kind of quite well into my next question, which is given your experiences, have you noticed any gaps in your well being program or even just in well being programming altogether in this industry that you feel need to be addressed immediately?

Speaker 2

In my point of view, I couldn’t consider a gap, but to me, it would be awesome if we had more awareness about our programs after our training to be a superhero. And it’s very connected to what I just said about encouraging people through testimonials and tutorials. Because once we make people aware about what we have here, they would take a look more often, you know what I mean?

Like a SharePoint page, for example, with links, text, testimonials, tutorials. It’s important to reinforce and highlight how important it is to take care of our wellbeing. And we never know when we need these resources. So I guess now after starting having a big picture of our programs, we should make superheroes more aware about it even more after our training.

Because in the training, we are excited to know about the company, our colleagues, our activities, our routine here. And there are so many things going on, too. So this extra content would highlight that these programs are part of our journey here.

And in this case, one idea that I suggested, like to fill this awareness gap, we could have more content highlighting these numerous programs in each monthly editions, for example, for our newsletter.

And besides the page, it would be awesome having a webinar, for example, to share experiences, to discuss wellbeing from our perspective, like a superhero perspective, or maybe a poetry cast to interview superheroes. So, you know, the ideas, we have a lot, but we still have this idea of sharing and understanding, listening superheroes, to share how do we feel here in our daily routine.

Speaker 1

Yeah. And I think you, you bring up a really good point there is that during training, there’s just so much information that you’re trying to assume about this new role that you’ve been hired for. So sometimes some of it can just get lost, you know. So like, even for myself, like with a lot of the companies that we work with, I’m always like, okay, when can we do a relaunch?

Or when can we do like a spotlight, you know, six months down the line? You know, how do we check in with moderators at a more frequent basis during their first year, you know, in the company so that they’re reminded that we’re still here, and that they can access our services anytime, right?

Because you don’t want people to forget that the supports are there when you’re putting so much effort in to get people to engage with those supports.

Speaker 2

Yeah, because, for example, we come, we want to know, like, for example, the routine, then we meet, like, our colleagues, we understand, like, for example, the technologies we’re going to deal with, we understand the platforms, like, our project too, so, of course, like, during the training, you understand the programs, you understand everything, like, I feel, like, okay, after the training, after I started my routine, like, a month or two months later, can we have, like, something, again, a training to understand, like, these programs, to check, like, if everything that I log it in, for example, the programs, it’s working, if I can try, or give it a try, try once, just to check if everything’s working, because if you need some day, like, it’s already there, so, of course, like, the page would, like, highlight, and of course, the newsletter is, like, a communication with us, like, at least, like, highlight, like, these programs, so people can at least give it a try and check, like, once in a while.

Speaker 1

I wanted to add the onboarding experience is so special that it does feel like we want to throw back after a while. So those six months kind of bliss point, I think is so crucial. And when it comes to this question, I just wanted to mention that it is a struggle to, you know, sometimes get to your supervisor, right?

Like we might have that emotional equity and so forth, but it is a challenge because, you know, we are overwhelmed with the content that we’re moderating, etc. But, you know, having that emotional openness to reach out and also to provide the tools to those leads, who the superheroes reach out to.

And that has been the gap that I always felt existed even in previous companies within the gaming industry.

And we are already addressing it because it’s fascinating that we are on that loop of open communication and we are actually finding ways to give tools to leadership, to provide some sort of certification and anything that could help the leads provide better to make sure that those gaps do not exist between, you know, the superhero being open to reach out, whatever the reason may be. Incredible.

I think for me, it’s just my time to listen right now. I took some notes. Amazing, always learning. So are there any maybe services or offerings within your current program that you feel work really well to safeguard your psychological health?

Speaker 2

Yes, there’s one that I really like. It’s called a dialogue. It’s accessible anywhere here in Canada, 24 seven VR or smartphone and online. And I really like this service because first of all, we can access it from our desk here and of course at home, or if you’re in a bus going back home, you can access it. And from my desk, for example, I had an experience.

And it was really interesting because I have never tried. And it was a Saturday, and I was here, and I was reading a post that was harmful to me that time. So I decided to try also to check its effectiveness. And I love it. And after the experience, it made me feel like so comfortable and protected to use it.

So we know that in these times, it’s hard to express ourselves, to understand the feeling that we’re feeling. So in that moment, I had the assistant that I needed online. And to make it happen, this is very important to highlight, to have time to use dialogue. I use it, what we call here, my extra 30 minute mental health break.

So it’s a benefit inside my project, in which we can take these extra 30 minutes after getting exposed to any harmful content, to take a break, to drink some water and take my time. And as we are in touch with it like daily, if we need to use them, we don’t need to talk to anyone, just adding our platform that we are using this and leave.

And of course it’s the time that I can access my resilience armor too, which works a lot to me. So yeah, so dialogue to me, it’s a very helpful app to use.

Speaker 1

Right. I wanted to add that coming from a player engagement area to trust and safety, the difference when it comes to the focus being on well-being is just screaming. And also the fact that we still have a bit of a gap between when we started working remotely and the tools we have to provide that wellness are still far behind the the actual needs.

So I feel like so lucky to be in a department where that is the main focus and you can tell already and I just want to grab it and you know tell all the other departments like this is the right focus to have. You will thrive once you start focusing on this and once you start realizing that remote work also has other challenges that we didn’t think about before.

So not just technology has to constantly evolve with the industry but also we have to evolve with it. And so I feel like outside counselors don’t always know that particular challenges that moderators feel and also even within specific departments that are parallel to the trust and safety one, it feels like there’s a lack of understanding of what it really means to be exposed to certain content.

So I’ve always felt like there’s a need to equip people who are in touch with the superheroes with that awareness of okay you’re providing counseling but also do you really understand where they’re coming from.

So we’re trying to really nurture that kind of first eight champions mentality where everyone has the tools to somewhat know where the boundaries are but still be able to provide support no matter at what part of the community you’re in.

Yeah and that’s I think it’s really important probably for our audience to know is that like the role of a moderator encompasses so much you know it’s there’s so many different working parts to that job and it is really really difficult to understand what it’s like if you’re not actually doing it right.

So like as much as I’ve been in the industry and working with content moderators for the last five years there’s still a lot that I don’t know about how the actual job operates and I’m still always learning from content moderators.

So to have a conversation like this where I get to speak to moderators and they can tell me more about the way that they’re working and what the challenges are and that I can understand you know what are the factors outside of content that are impacting you are there operational processes are there tools are there policies even that like just don’t fit and for us to kind of collaborate with other departments and understand the finer details about what’s working and what’s not is really really important.

Definitely so lead me into my last question there’s a big movement I think within the wider trust and safety community to enhance that cross-discipline working in order to safeguard moderators well-being so talking to people in data science in UX in tooling policy all these different areas.

Do you feel that there are any teams that you would like to have more contact with or that you feel would benefit from just understanding more about the challenges that you face when you’re doing content moderation work?

Speaker 2

OK, I love this question. I’m a very curious person, and sometimes when we don’t find like specific information in a reliable source for about a game, for example, I think like I wish I could talk with the devs or UX designers to get it easier and faster.

So to me, I would love to be in touch with them as we deal with different games and narratives, it would be very helpful to get information with them if we need it. For example, when I have a game releasing and we haven’t played it yet, for example, we have like the information that media publishes, but the players are complaining about something or caring about something specific.

If we had a chance to talk and ask a question to these people just to have a big picture of it, it would be very helpful. And I do like this cross discipline perspective because we get in touch with fields that we work with, but we are not in the middle of the process. And as a journalist, I would have great questions to ask them and make my job like more interesting. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I would like to add that the point we brought in earlier, how the the clients, the developers need to be open and flexible. It’s just a blessing because we are part of this, you know, pilot new kind of technology that we’re facing and moderating and creating the community for this loop of feedback is so crucial.

And I must say that it’s been a pleasure to work with such an open client that is, you know, learning with us. And honestly, the fact that it’s a two way street where, you know, we have veterans, we also have new superheroes that are working with this new community.

And that open communication is so essential that, you know, they are reaching out to their tech people with the developments with the trust and safety departments and making it more seamless and so forth. It’s just, it’s a requirement that all parts communicate.

And when you do experience that firsthand, and see that they understand that the focus on well being first is something we have as a value that we share. That’s quite unique. And that’s where the industry needs to get to. So I’m very lucky to say that I’ve been experiencing that more than ever before within the trust and safety department and with this partner that we have.

And it’s actually your first anniversary because Keywords has been working with them as a consultant for over a year. So there’s a lot of trust in this. So maybe having I mean, it’s always nice to hear when the cross discipline work is going well. Because I think a lot of the time we talk about the challenges that come with trying to work cross discipline.

So it’s amazing to hear that this partner that you have is working really well with you and that it feels like it’s a two way street. And that you’re learning from each other, you know? Definitely. I’m a lucky person right here. Well, that brings us to the end of today’s webinar. I don’t know, did you guys have anything else that you wanted to highlight before we finish off? All good.

Well, listen, thank you very much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. I know that you guys are very busy. So thank you very much for joining us in today’s webinar. And we look forward to having Keyword Studios back for the last webinar series next week. Thank you very much.