Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Content Moderation

Speaker 1

Hello and welcome to today’s webinar about advancing diversity and inclusion in content moderation.

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My name is Shishti Sharma, and I’m a psychologist, well-being specialist in zero health.

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So today we will be discussing a few concepts related to diversity, equity and inclusion and why it is so important in our field of content moderation. While it is not just about reviewing content, it can also be very helpful for policymaking, giving trainings or even for hiring a diverse team.

Then we would be talking about a few challenges that can come across by working in a diverse workplace and a few strategies on how to overcome them. Then we would be closing the presentation by talking about a few benefits of diversity. So why diversity and inclusion specifically interested in safety? Because our unconscious biases, it can affect our understanding of things.

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our opinions, and Vince our decision-making processes.

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important for us to know more about diversity as it brings perspective, which is not just ours. It benefits the workplace, not just the marginalized communities. It also improves financial performance and innovation and productivity in the world cases. So let’s just develop on what exactly is diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We will be talking about the concepts in a little detail, and I hope that clarifies the concept. Essentially, diversity embraces the presence of a wide variety of societal groups. Diversity refers to physical, psychological, social, and cultural differences that occur among individuals.

Its aim is to develop policies and interventions to account for the diverse range of individuals actively involved together from various backgrounds, ages, gender, culture, and ethnicities. Diversity can also relate to more invisible factors, such as personality, educational background,

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and even fun different preferences.

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then we come to equity. So equity means everyone has the access.

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the same opportunities. However, we must first ensure equity before we can enjoy.

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equality. Equalities ensure everyone is treating in the same way without taking into consideration the disparities among distinct social groups. However, equity acknowledges and recognizes the disparities amongst these social groups and take action on addressing them to provide a fair outcome for everyone.

I think it is important for us to understand the concept of equity and equality is, you know, how many see a race, a 100 meter race or a relay race to the person who’s standing the farthest from the circle will start from the later point just because it should be an equal 100 meter race for everyone.

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makes games the concept of equities.

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I hope that makes sense. And then finally, inclusion. Inclusion then refers to individuals with different identities feeling part of the group which does not always occur in diversity. So I think why cultivating inclusivity in my team is very important is we have to welcome diverse backgrounds into one shared environment.

Then it also helps us in cultivating a sense of belongingness within the said environment because I have one common motive within everyone. And then it also helps us in actively fostering and maintaining inclusion through ongoing engagement on the topic and training in people.

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awareness of socialist priorities.

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So when we start talking about inclusion more and more, I think we start talking about the needs of different groups and where is equity coming. Then also, this is one of the concepts that has been recently added to the concept when we talk about diversity and inclusion. The topic is of neurodiversity.

So examples of neurocognitive differences can include autism, dyslexia, ADHD, dysfraxia, dyscalculia, internet syndrome. It is also estimated that about 15% of the population are neurodivergent. So I’m pretty sure a lot of times we do have people around us, but we don’t really talk about it that often because of certain biases that they have or certain stereotypes that we form.

But it is very important for us to understand why inclusion of neurodivergent is important. As an employee is trying to create a healthy workplace culture, it’s been respectful of the accommodations given to their colleagues.

Like, for example, having quite a workspace build or if somebody’s feeling old when they should always have a place to calm down or should always have that space of going and not talking to anybody. So it also means providing support and training to wider teams and managers to increase awareness of the impact which can be done when we talk about neurodiversity.

Then I think creating flexibility in work needs and deadlines also gives really an atmosphere for everyone to fit in properly. So now we talk about a few facets of identity and their potential impacts on the kind of biases we can have.

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you

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So, historically, research has shown us gender inequalities represent one of the greatest forms of inequalities today. Some inequalities start well before individuals enter the world of work and limit their opportunities. The objectives of reducing inequality and promoting inclusive growth are therefore becoming even more important at an international level.

So, reducing inequality is a matter of choice. Policy choices such as DVI have been made to bring awareness and accountability to different forms of inequality, even if it is unintentional. So, I think a lot of times we don’t really talk about how disability is affecting our environment or how somebody else’s race or ethnicity is affecting our environment.

But on the other side, when we see about it, the potential areas of impact can be unemployment status, the treatment that you just see within the environment, the salary, the different kind of opportunities, promotions, different kind of career, confidences, aspirations and workloads.

So, it is not really talked about and this is one topic which is usually rubbed under the carpet unless it’s a very open environment. But it is as important to discuss these things within the team so that everybody knows how transparent the workspace is.

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This is.

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And definitely, a more transparent workspace will definitely cater to a healthier workspace, a place where people can come and talk about things. Let’s discuss a few workplace challenges that we might face because of the unconscious biases that we have. I’m going to explain the concept of unconscious biases over here. So there are a lot of different types of biases we’re surrounded with.

A lot of times, biases are used to categorize people, but it is not necessarily that they’re conscious always. They can be very unconscious, which can be deeply rooted in our culture or even our surroundings when we’re growing up.

They can be adopted over time, starting from young ages and can be enhanced or diminished by our personal experiences, how we attach meaning to it, or different kinds of judgments. It is important for us to identify what undesirable behaviors are around us. So when I talk about biases, so biases, stereotyping and prejudices are three different kinds of undesirable behaviors that can come across.

So bias is a personal information or a preference towards somebody. A stereotyping is a widely held but oversimplified and generalized belief about a particular group. And prejudice is preconceived negative attitudinal bias. Okay, so I hope I will be able to make it a little more clearer for the examples that I’ve given over here.

So if anybody favors a particular candidate from a university just because they’ve studied from there, so they know that the people would be able to do it, that’s the bias. That means I have a favorable reference towards somebody. A stereotype can be having an opinion about a particular group because everybody behaves the same way. But usually it is not like that.

So for example, I’ve written over here, all engineers are introverted. That means that no matter whatever field, however interactive they would be, they will still be stereotyped as introverted.

And for prejudices, I think one of the greatest examples is someone who will strategize for you might assume that people from certain ethnicity are lazy or unintentional without having any evidence to support this belief. So I hope you will be able to understand the three different kinds of biases we can all have in our workplaces.

And again, it is not necessary that they have to be very conscious, but they can be unconscious just because we have seen it like that, or we’ve heard people talking about it, or maybe we have learned this from our friends group or somewhere else.

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can’t bend it.

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So now we get into biases. What kind of biases are there? So unconscious bias and explicit bias. So unconscious bias or cognitive bias represent the set of biases that are unintentional. You are not aware of your attitudes and the behaviors that are resulting from them. On the other hand, cognitive bias is often a result of your brain’s attempt to simplify information.

We received roughly 11 million bits of information per second, but we can only process about 40 bits of information per second. So you see the difference between what we get and how much we’re being able to absorb from here. So that’s the point. So biases do not usually mean that they’re bad people. However, we can practice becoming aware of them and how they can implement the way we think or behave.

So we usually categorize people on four different basis, sex, race, age, disability, et cetera. I was talking about this in the previous slide, but I think it is very important for us that the number of categories that would be there, the number of categories we would be making, the number of biases it will be there.

So important for us to understand the categories and understand how can we be more compassionate towards them rather than being more and more biased.

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being more and more opinionated towards them.

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So these are a few examples of biases that we have. I’m going to read that out, and then we will be seeing what kind of bias it is. So for example, Raquel and Ifa both work as team leads. Their manager has decided to pay Raquel a salary of 30k, and Ifa at 28k as she’s younger and doesn’t need extra money. I think it is an explicit bias where it is more conscious.

The person is more aware of what they are doing. It is just because it’s an unfair pay because of their age. So it’s more of a cognitive bias. Then secondly, in a team meeting, she divides up the workload among her team and says to her colleague, Deline, you’re a man, so you’d better be able to work at pivoting tables for this presentation. Can you cover this task?

So this is more of a cognitive bias just because we have an assumption and a lot of times it is said that men are better at logic-oriented things or they’re more better at technical stuff. And then lastly, John is an Irish manager of a team predominantly located in Western Europe and America. The team is mostly male and very vocal during the meetings.

On the other hand, Julie had recently joined the team from podium. She has not spoken up in many meetings, so John assumes that she cannot add any value to the team.

It is, again, explicit as well as cognitive, but on the other side, I feel it is more of a cognitive behavioral thing where the person is having cognitive biases of culture and sex just because she might be a female or just because she’s from a place where people don’t speak that much or people are a little bit shy. So now we come to practicing DEI at work.

It is important for us to adopt these policies because I particularly feel the more we’re gonna practice this type of work from an unconscious place, the more it is gonna help us in understanding where we would be wrong or we wouldn’t even know about it. So DEI in content moderation is important for us to understand because it first is an attitude of openness.

It helps us in being aware of the bias, stereotype, prejudices, and kind of discrimination that can be done at work. It is not necessary that I am doing it, but it can be done to me as well.

Then asking others to hold you accountable is something which is very nice, that whenever you make a joke which might be a very unconscious joke from your side, you can always ask people to call you up so that you know that, okay, I can be called out and it can embarrass me at some point.

Then again, it is important for us to hold the leadership accountable for the things that are happening in the company. If you think you are not okay with something, please speak up about it. Then I think communication is the key as we say every time. So no two people can ever communicate perfectly. However, how clear we communicate helps us to develop a sense of trust and rapport.

Asking questions which are not wrong, but how you ask them can be.

Speaker 1

Try not to be defensive while communicating in questions, rather be genuinely interested in their answers with an open mind. This play of an affection in respect is always an add-on to this. I think it is important for us to understand that a lot of times verbal communication is lesser important than non-verbal communication. That is the tone, how we’re speaking, and the body language that we have.

How we’re talking, how defensive are we, how open are we? As they say that usually when you’re talking to somebody, you can have proper eye contact just to show that you are confident, but eye contacts can be intimidating as well. So it depends upon the audience around you, what approach do you have to do in this area.

Then I think empathy as a skill is very much important for us to understand, especially while having these sensitive conversations. So we should always strive to understand. Treating listening as an active process rather than a passive one. This means participating in a conversation rather than acting as an audience.

Active listeners show that they’re listening, including sharing and strive to understand the speaker. Always remember, if you try to follow this six pointers, it can always boost our communication skills where we can become more and more active in listening and understanding. asking questions which should not offend other people.

Then always practicing empathy, trying to understand the applied or trying to understand what they’re saying instead of making fun of it. Then focusing on similarities among racing with differences.

This is something which can have impact on having very interesting conversations with people where you are exploring what kind of similarities are there and also embracing the differences and enjoying them as well.

Then acknowledging the emotional state of the person if they are unhappy discussing it or if they’re being sad or if there are any other tones of emotions which are not usually displayed. If somebody is being a little serious it is definitely not recommended to make jokes about it. So that means about acknowledging the emotional state of the person who’s speaking.

Then building a rapport with the people around you. Always try to be actively listening to what they’re saying and actively responding as well without being offensive. And be mindful to avoid any judgments or reactions just right away. Think about what they’re saying and if you have any questions say that rather than being quick to judge or showing me.

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reactions to it.

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Then we come to the benefits of diversity. As I was discussing, when we cater to different diversity, equity and inclusion in our workspaces, it can work wonders. There are different benefits which can be achieved just while being more present, more mindful of the kind of conversations that we have around. So I think why DEI is important is it is helpful in fostering a healthy workspace.

It also helps us in challenging us to grow as an individual because we learn more, we teach more around us and we’re always ready to have an open conversation about it. Then it also helps us in creativity and innovation. Just because I can have people from different backgrounds, it can definitely bring in more and more perspectives rather than having just one or two perspectives in the team.

Then learning to work effectively across differences and creating a sense of belongingness that no matter wherever anybody is wrong, they all belong together. That means they all have a common goal in mind that is content moderation or working for the company.

So when we feel belonging at work, usually the researchers have shown that approximately 40% of the people feel very much isolated at the work. But on the other side, if you try to foster an environment where I am asking everybody to stay together or come together, it becomes a happier place for everyone. There is a sense of life satisfaction, there is a sense of happiness.

You’re not taking something from office to bathroom which is stressing you out. Then it definitely affects your physical health and your lifespan and it also gives you a sense of purpose because when you belong to someone, your purposes start aligning with them. So for example, if you’re feeling belonging towards your workplace, their goals can also become your shared goals with them.

So it definitely fosters an environment of happiness and a healthy living. And lastly, the way I aim is to develop policies and interventions to account for diverse range of individuals actively involved together from various backgrounds and ages.

So human diversity is so broad and vast that for an organization to be successful in this area, it needs to create an inclusive workspace that embraces and effectively manages the differences. So I hope it helps you out in understanding why is that important.

A few tips I would really like to talk about is try to engage with different kind of communities as much as you can so that your learning is increased every time. Managers can also help us in facilitating screenings to support all the members around. If there are any questions, they should be answered rather than pushing under the rug. And try embracing different cultures.

So you can have small parties for different kinds of festivals in all cultures, or you can have a few get-togethers, or at least even acknowledging in the meetings that, okay, this is something which is very different but also very interesting in the culture.

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Whenever we start doing all of these small little things, it does foster an environment of belongingness, I was just mentioning, and it makes people feel more and more included that they’re celebrated rather than being just a part of a different culture story. So I really hope it helps and I will see you the next time. Thank you.