Moderator Resilience: Supporting Trust and Safety teams through war time

Unknown speaker

So, welcome everyone back to our podcast, Zevo Talks. I’m Dr. Michelle Teo, Clinical Director of Zevo Health, and I am your host for today. And joining me once again is the fabulous Shauna Farrell, who is one of our clinical program leads for our digital therapy program, and has previously worked as a wellbeing specialist, providing services directly to content moderators.

Unknown speaker

So, you’re very welcome back to the podcast, Shauna. Thanks, Michelle. Thanks for the lovely introduction. Great. So, I guess the topic that we’re talking about today is a little bit of an extension of one of the panels that I was sitting on last week at the TSPA AMIA Summit, looking at kind of mental health supports for content moderation teams during times of crisis or during times of war, which we know is a significant challenge at the moment.

Unknown speaker

So, maybe just to start off, could you maybe just give some insights into like your personal experience kind of working with moderators who are going through a crisis like this? Yeah, sure. I think when I was working as a wellbeing specialist, the war in Ukraine was happening, and then we also saw the conflict happening in Gaza.

Unknown speaker

So, I definitely had some firsthand experience supporting people working in trust and safety, content moderators in particular who were now having exposure to kind of wartime content. So, look, it was challenging for them for multiple reasons, and I know we’ll go into some of that in a bit of a deeper level, but first of all, the content itself is quite difficult to watch because obviously it’s, you know,

Unknown speaker

you’re seeing people maybe die, you’re seeing cities be destroyed, things like that. So, the content itself is quite difficult. I think the other thing is there were certain companies I worked with who they maybe didn’t before these kind of conflicts, their exposure to content.

Unknown speaker

wasn’t so graphic, but because the impact of the content was so broad, even on these platforms that maybe didn’t usually see that kind of content, they were seeing that trickle down. So people who weren’t used to it or had maybe moved out of the industries that were a little bit more graphic into something less so, were now seeing very graphic and difficult content again because of the different conflicts happening in the world.

Unknown speaker

And not just content moderators, it was across trust and safety. So I feel it’s also the kind of thing because it’s universally impacting people. It’s starting to impact other teams and trust and safety managers, leadership as well, of course, as the content moderators.

Unknown speaker

So definitely something I saw and definitely was something that was, yeah, I suppose a challenge for them and a challenge for us to figure out how do we best support people in this situation and the people who have to view this content and maybe what do they need from a well-being perspective to do this.

Unknown speaker

Yeah. And, you know, I think you said something really important there. It’s not just, you know, your traditional social media platforms where you’re going to start seeing this stuff, particularly I think in times of war or conflict, it sort of has a trickle down effect and starts showing up in like people who are moderating like news content or people who are moderating even like podcasts and things like that.

Unknown speaker

People are talking about it on a podcast and hearing really graphic details. So it doesn’t really matter what type of platform it is. If you have a trust and safety team there that is working on any kind of content, there is the potential that this type of content is going to show up for them.

Unknown speaker

And so in sort of like maybe working with individuals who are impacted because they’re exposed to the content or even maybe personally impacted because they have like family members who are in that area or friends that they know in that area because they’re immigrants, you know, what type of supports do you offer to them on that kind of individual level if you’re, say, doing like a counseling session with them?

Unknown speaker

Yeah. And it’s a really good question because particularly with Ukraine, I worked with a few people who were maybe from Ukraine, so they still had friends and family and people back there, but they were in Ireland.

Unknown speaker

So for me, it was definitely a new experience initially. And I remember I think even coming to supervision to think about, okay, how can I best support this person? And what do they need from me? Because when somebody is from a place where there’s conflict, it’s totally understandable and valid that they are going to be distressed.

Unknown speaker

They’re going to be upset. They’re going to be worried about their family members. So there’s a lot of validation work that goes into the one-to-one sessions because, yes, we can give people tools to maybe manage their anxiety or manage their distress.

Unknown speaker

At the end of the day, anyone in a situation where their country is in a war zone is going to be distressed from that. And on top of that, these people are also more likely to be viewing that content because of the way the moderation…

Unknown speaker

works in the markets, if they have the language, they are going to be seeing content that is conflict from the country that they’re from, which has people that they love in that country potentially being harmed or at risk of harm.

Unknown speaker

So I think a lot of, for me, first of all, educating myself on, okay, what is the kind of helpful supports that we have for people who are in that situation? Like are there helplines, are there community support for people that they can access?

Unknown speaker

And then, yeah, in session doing a lot of validating and I suppose trying to give them shorter term techniques to not take away what they’re experiencing, but help them just to manage day to day if they’re feeling quite anxious or overwhelmed, what are the kind of things that they might do?

Unknown speaker

And I think sometimes it’s suggested that they try to switch off from the content and switch off from the news, but again, if you’re from a country where there’s war, you also want to know what’s going on, right?

Unknown speaker

And so there’s a balance there. Yes, of course, maybe we can cut back a little bit for our own mental health, but they’re also talking to people from home. They’re talking to people in their community.

Unknown speaker

They’re watching the news because they’re looking for good news and bad news because they’re emotionally invested in it, right? So it is, it’s definitely a super tricky thing for the person to do to work in a job like content moderation, moderate that content, and also be personally and emotionally impacted by the conflict that’s happening.

Unknown speaker

Yeah, and what you said there, it just reminded me of a time when I was a well-being specialist and we were supporting people at time when there was a lot of political unrest in Myanmar or Burma. And it was exactly that we were trying to say to people, you know, when you get home, don’t look at the news, don’t try and shift your focus to something different.

Unknown speaker

But at the end of the day, because they’re so emotionally invested, it’s really difficult for them to say, well, I’m not gonna watch the news because what if something major happens and it has an impact on my friends and my family, and I need to know that in advance.

Unknown speaker

And particularly, I think at times of war, like the level of contact that you have with your family, it can be much more challenging to get into contact with people to check in that they’re okay, internet networks might be down, phone networks might be down.

Unknown speaker

And so any kind of reassurance that they feel that they can get, I think is really important for us to recognize that it’s not okay to just say, just switch off from this, go home, don’t look at anything.

Unknown speaker

Sometimes they need that. Exactly, and that’s a lesson I suppose learned for us in the sense that like, that would be something we often say to content moderators, like, try to switch off, try to remove yourself.

Unknown speaker

And generally, I think that’s a good suggestion, but actually, it’s maybe not helpful for the people who do have that, that tie. And also when you were saying that, okay. up for me as well was I heard a lot of guilt from people.

Unknown speaker

So they felt like I’m in Dublin and I’m not where this war is happening. So it’s not okay for me to switch off because the people who live in the conflict zone, they can’t switch off, right? And there’s already a lot of guilt around them not being there, you know, maybe not fighting in the war, whatever.

Unknown speaker

So there’s that piece as well, right? There’s a lot of guilt of being the person that isn’t in the war zone. I’m relieved that I’m not there, but I also feel guilty because of that. So I think that’s also something to be mindful of when we’re thinking about them switching off or not engaging with content.

Unknown speaker

Actually, for them, that might not be the most helpful thing. And also, you know, we talked about and kind of spinning off on that some of the things that can be helpful is, you know, they’d be maybe donating money or doing things that they can do from here to support back home, right?

Unknown speaker

So there are things that can help with feeling like they’re, I suppose, aiding the cause, and they’re part of the community still, but they’re doing that from a distance. Yeah, and that leads to a really relevant point at the moment where Israel Hamas is currently happening.

Unknown speaker

And in Ireland, where we’ve a lot of immigrants, we have a lot of expats, we have a lot of people who are maybe from those countries. And like you’re saying, they want to find a way to offer that support, or they want to find a way to contribute in some way, but because they’re at a distance, it’s just not feasible for them to kind of go over there and actually support in that way.

Unknown speaker

So they might be organizing protests, or they might be doing rallies with people in their community, or they might be doing community contributions, gathering funds from like their colleagues and things like that to send over for war aid.

Unknown speaker

All of those little pieces are things that they can do to feel like they’re making a difference, even when they’re at a distance and they don’t feel that they can be there in person supporting people the way that they want to.

Unknown speaker

Yeah, 100%. And I think that’s important for us to take direction from them as well. And what it is that might make them feel like they’re being able to offer that support. Yeah, and that’s a really good point too, right?

Unknown speaker

As much as us as well being specialists, we can make our recommendations and we can be supportive and we want to be able to sit people down in counseling sessions or even in group discussions so that they can process their feelings.

Unknown speaker

To some degree, we have to be guided by the people who are directly impacted because they’re the ones who are having that lived experience and they’re the experts on what’s gonna work best for them, right?

Unknown speaker

As to Michelle, you’re saying there by being led by the clients and I think that’s really important. a learning for me too, because it’s such a, I suppose, niche experience to be a person from a war zone conflict having to moderate content from that.

Unknown speaker

And I have no experience in that area, right? I have empathy, of course, I can totally understand feelings of sadness and distress, but I don’t understand what it feels like to come from somewhere where there’s currently a war happening.

Unknown speaker

Like that must be so challenging and so difficult for that person. So definitely being led by them from what they need. And I know I can think of one person in particular, we kind of tried a few different things and they would let me know, actually, do you know what?

Unknown speaker

Writing stuff down is not helping me because it feels like I’m kind of reliving what’s happening. So it was like, okay, let’s try something else instead. They found mindfulness was actually much better for them.

Unknown speaker

So I think it’s giving them the opportunity to say what’s helping, trying different things, getting feedback on that and just letting it really be led by them and being that. port system for them to have somewhere they can come and just be sad or be distressed and not feel like there’s anything wrong with us because there really isn’t.

Unknown speaker

It’s completely understandable. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s similar, I think, to some of the learnings that we had initially when the Ukraine war kicked off. A lot of our customers, because they were so, so concerned about the content moderators, they wanted us to implement supports immediately, which is completely understandable from the customer point of view.

Unknown speaker

And we had felt the same way, right? Get these people support as soon as possible, get them dedicated one-to-one counseling slots, make sure that their groups set up, make sure that there’s spaces where people feel that they can discuss this and talk about all of the feelings that they’re experiencing.

Unknown speaker

And then the one thing that we heard actually from the moderators directly was, do you know what? We really appreciate that you’re offering us these supports, but we actually just need a little bit of space and time for ourselves at the moment where we can process it ourselves, where we can discuss with each other without needing to feel like there’s a mental health professional sitting in front of us,

Unknown speaker

but also where we could just take our break to try and call a family member who might actually need a discussion with us. And so we really took that learning for the next time a conflict came up where we said, okay, it is important to have the supports available to people.

Unknown speaker

And it is important to have that, you know, as soon as possible. But sometimes people need maybe like a week or two weeks to really process how they’re feeling and everything that’s going on for them before they start engaging with mental health professionals to discuss it at that level.

Unknown speaker

Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s such a good takeaway. Again, being led by the people that are actually being impacted by this conflict, right? Having the option there for support, but also having the option for them to use that time, as you said, for themselves to process, to talk to family.

Unknown speaker

members. And again, I think that’s a good learning for companies as well. It’s like, you know, reacting with wellbeing support is brilliant. And obviously, we’ve seen the benefits of that. But I suppose it’s, it’s such a specific issue.

Unknown speaker

It’s also helpful to maybe think about other options for those people. So maybe a little bit more wellbeing time or time they can have to reach out and call home or whatever it might be. I think it’s, it’s definitely something that because it’s, it’s, there’s a lot of it happening right now.

Unknown speaker

It’s learning curve for us all, right? We’re trying and, but I think that’s a really good point. We need to take as much feedback as we can from the people who are directly impacted by this. And look, it’s not to say that people who are not from those countries aren’t impacted, right?

Unknown speaker

Like I worked with people who are not from the conflict zones. And there were some people very distressed by the content because I think particularly the content we’re seeing coming from Gaza, that’s very graphic for a lot of people.

Unknown speaker

It’s egregious content and it’s extremely difficult. So it’s not that we’re forgetting about those people and there’s definitely things we need to do to support those too, but it’s like an extra layer when you’re actually from that place, right?

Unknown speaker

And you have those emotional ties to that place as well. Yeah, and it is a very valid point, right? That anyone who is facing this content, regardless of whether or not they have an affinity with that community or whether or not they’re historically from that kind of conflict zone, there’s the potential for anyone to be impacted.

Unknown speaker

And it could be that momentary kind of impact, it’s one piece of content that they viewed that causes them significant distress, or it could be that longer term kind of enduring difficulty because we know wars don’t just stop and start within two weeks’ time.

Unknown speaker

They’re enduring and there’s changes that come with war and that it could be months, it could be years before we start to see some resolutions. And so we need to be mindful of that and the long-term impacts it can have on any content moderator.

Unknown speaker

Yeah, I think that’s such a good point as well. I think the expectation maybe particularly about Ukraine would be that it would be quite quick. And that was something that came up a lot as well, just that kind of disbelief that this was still happening, right?

Unknown speaker

So over time, it doesn’t necessarily get easier to deal with, but of course there’s desensitization, there’s things like that. But we also need to be mindful of that because as much as we want to lower distress, it is distressing, right?

Unknown speaker

So it’s getting that balance of helping them to manage as best they can, but also knowing that there are going to be more longer effects the longer these things go on. And I suppose our reaction to that changes too, because as you mentioned, when there’s acute stress, we probably react quicker.

Unknown speaker

We have extra peer support, extra groups, things like that. As things go on longer term, those things tend to fade away. because maybe the utilization of them drops people have to go back and try to just go back to living their lives day to day as much as they can but we need to remember as a well-being team and also as their companies that they definitely are still being impacted so maybe are there things we can do to be making sure we’re still checking in on this group of people and they still have a little bit of extra support even as these conflicts go on maybe longer and longer.

Unknown speaker

With seven years of industry experience Zevo Health brings a wealth of expertise to the table ensuring top-tier care at every stage of your moderators careers. Our network of licensed mental health professionals ensures that your moderators are in capable hands equipped to handle even the most challenging situations they may encounter.

Unknown speaker

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Unknown speaker

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Unknown speaker

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Unknown speaker

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Unknown speaker

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Unknown speaker

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Unknown speaker

EvoHealth.com. It leads me to, I guess, another question around that. It’s not just the well-being providers who are offering support to content moderators, it’s also the ecosystem that’s around them.

Unknown speaker

As you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, it’s people like the managers and the leaders. In terms of a company and the wider ecosystem that is around content moderators, what might managers or leaders need to take into consideration in how they support moderation teams?

Unknown speaker

Yeah. I think it’s such a good question because if I was a manager in this situation, it’s definitely new. It would be new to me and it would be a challenge. If you’re having a lot of people on your team being distressed or all of a sudden seeing difficult content.

Unknown speaker

And I think we need to remember with interest and safety, there’s often those higher targets and we have high volume and people have to meet quality scores. So even the most empathetic person in the world is probably still holding those things in mind.

Unknown speaker

So I think it’s empathy towards managers, I suppose from any way to realise that this is going to be a difficult situation probably for them to manage. I think for a manager, for them, they also need support.

Unknown speaker

So whether that’s training on, you know, how you might support someone who’s going through this process, how do we support someone who’s seeing a lot of difficult content. And then I suppose for them, for managers themselves, really tapping into that empathetic leadership like trying to.

Unknown speaker

understand where this person is coming from, try to perspective take making reasonable accommodations where we can because that’s going to be really important and I think a big part of this for people is feeling heard even if you don’t understand what this is like hearing someone out and really validating how they feel, validating their emotions because it is so so difficult.

Unknown speaker

So I think if managers can do that and advocate for wellbeing support we know as well if managers buy into wellbeing support it’s more likely their team will do that as well. So I think really advocating for that is helpful and I know I’ve said a lot there so lots of different things to think about but definitely overall we need to give support to managers so that managers can properly support their teams I think.

Unknown speaker

Yeah it’s exactly I think what we discussed at the panel discussion at the EMEA summit right like managers are always in that sort of position where they they’ve got people sitting above them like their senior leadership team and then they’ve got their moderation teams below them and so they can sometimes feel that squeeze being in the middle and they want to support their moderators as best as possible but they might still be getting kind of pressure from the top to meet performance targets to make sure that people are like you know not booking annual leave when they shouldn’t be booking annual leave and all of these other things that come with being a manager right so offering them that support and helping them understand what are the best ways that you can support your team but then also advocate for them you know looking upwards that’s kind of key particularly in times of conflict or in war where that additional pressure is just already there and that additional sort of like emotional distress might be becoming more apparent over time and so then I wonder like if we even broaden that out apart from sort of managers and leaders like if we look at the kind of system as a whole and the whole operations kind of side of like moderation.

Unknown speaker

You mentioned things like allowing people like reasonable accommodations like taking extra well-being time but we know that there are kind of operational constraints that might come with that. So is there a way that we can balance the operational needs with the needs of the moderators?

Unknown speaker

Yeah I think it’s a good question and as you said that’s that is the reality of content moderation that there are operational needs and there’s often high volume and things like that to be taken into consideration.

Unknown speaker

I suppose like you know with our digital therapy platform it’s 24-7 support so they can actually access support after work on the weekends things like that. So I think that’s one way to offer a wider level of support is having that access to trust and safety specific counselling and therapy that sometimes is actually outside of their working hours.

Unknown speaker

I think as well things like you know maybe peer support can be helpful because we can get quite a lot of people into that so it’s 10 or 12 people. doing peer support rather than 10 or 12 people maybe having extra one-to-one counseling sessions or a lot of extra wellbeing time.

Unknown speaker

So I think making adaptations that we’re getting people’s support, but obviously we’re doing in a way that’s mindful to, you know, the running of the business. But I do agree with the advocacy piece you said because I think it’s really important to be aware of the impact of this content on people.

Unknown speaker

And maybe that’s rotating people out of queues or making sure that maybe one team specifically isn’t the only team seeing this content. So definitely think there are ways you can think about it, but I do understand it can be tricky.

Unknown speaker

Yeah, and I think everyone recognizes that, right? Like there’s no perfect solution and there’s not like, you know, the kind of perfect playbook that comes with this. But I think particularly like what we’ve talked about a lot is like lessons learned.

Unknown speaker

And I think that can help us at the next time something like this occurs for the first time within a company, it could be another war that happens. It could be another just sort of like political unrest.

Unknown speaker

It could be anything that is a crisis, even something like COVID, right? Where, you know, we can take all of the lessons that we’ve learned from the current pieces that are happening and even develop like a very flexible playbook going forward where we have everyone in the ecosystem involved.

Unknown speaker

So whether that’s like operations managers, policy teams, moderators themselves, the wellbeing providers, senior leaders, you know, getting everyone to contribute to that so that we have something that is kind of ready and prepared, but that’s flexible and adaptable enough to the situation that occurs the next time.

Unknown speaker

Yeah, yeah, I think that’s a really good point. It’s a very good opportunity for us to put something together like that. And again, look, every conflict is different, but I think if we had something together that we knew could be rolled out or could be used and is informed by wider teams.

Unknown speaker

like management but also of course content moderation, content moderators and the people who are directly impacted by the conflict and I think that’s what I’ll go back to time and time again it’s we can really learn a lot from them and what do they actually need and maybe what helped them and what didn’t help them when well yeah and we kind of reacted to this this conflict so yeah I think that’s that’s really important and would be yeah an excellent thing to have an excellent resource.

Unknown speaker

And so I suppose you know like we’ve talked about a lot a different topics over the course of this podcast and there there was some sort of like practical elements that we talked about we talked a little bit about your kind of like personal experience and then supporting managers and having the whole ecosystem involved.

Unknown speaker

Is there any maybe like last sort of takeaways or practical tips or you know solutions that you might provide to a company who has maybe never encountered this type of content before and is seeing it for the first time?

Unknown speaker

Yeah yeah it’s It’s a good question. There’s lots of things I could say there. So I suppose from my personal experience with that and working with a couple of companies who maybe had that, it was more graphic or egregious content than they were used to seeing.

Unknown speaker

I think what I found worked very well and what the people who I worked with seemed to enjoy was the peer support element for sure, because they were able to talk to each other about how they were feeling.

Unknown speaker

They were able to validate each other’s emotions. There was also people there who felt maybe about sharing that responsibility. So if on one day you felt things were too much, I’m happy to support you here and vice versa.

Unknown speaker

So working out between themselves how they could help each other. So I think that’s one thing that for me seemed to work quite well in those situations where we have different people, different teams, and they’re struggling to have a bit of support between themselves.

Unknown speaker

I think the education piece is really important, just making sure we have a little bit of knowledge on the conflict, on who’s being impacted, and I suppose what support is helpful. And I think as for one-to-ones, for us as well being specialists in Zevo, to know and share that knowledge around that really important piece around validation, which obviously we know most people are aware of as therapists anyway,

Unknown speaker

but I think particularly in this situation. So yeah, I think it’s just giving access to support where people need it, encouraging the use of that well-being support, because it can be really helpful, and giving people a space to talk about how they’re being impacted, how they’re feeling, so that we can try to support them as best we can with that.

Unknown speaker

Amazing. Well, listen, you shared a lot of incredible information that I think companies will find really useful, and if anyone had attended our panel discussion at the EMEA Summit, they would have heard some of these pieces anyway, but it’s always great to kind of get someone who has worked directly with the content moderators.

Unknown speaker

these types of situations to talk a little bit more in detail about how they’ve been supported and what’s worked for them. So thank you very much. We really appreciate you coming on board to talk to us about that.

Unknown speaker

Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me. It’s a privilege. And just to say it’s been some of the most meaningful one-to-ones I’ve had with these people and a motive for me and a motive for them. And I would have maybe questioned myself from time to time, am I doing enough to support these people?

Unknown speaker

Because you kind of do feel like how can I possibly give you what you need when you’re going through this, those people who are actually from those places. But I do know from the feedback from them that just having someone there to hear them and to validate them and to understand to some extent how difficult this must be is helpful.

Unknown speaker

So yeah, just to leave it on that note and say that. Wonderful. Well, to anyone listening, thank you so much for joining us again on this podcast episode. If your teams are struggling at any point and you need some additional support, feel free to reach out to us at Zevo Health.

Unknown speaker

You can find us at zevohealth.com.