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 the VP of Trust & Safety at Match Group, the parent company of Tinder, Hinge, and more than a dozen other dating apps worldwide.
I’m also a Knight Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, a Technology Policy Fellow at UC Berkeley, and a Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. My research and writing focus on trustworthy governance approaches for social media, AI, and other emerging technologies.
At Twitter, I was the Head of Trust & Safety, leading Twitter’s global content moderation, integrity, and account security efforts.
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 speaking engagements, reach out to speaking (at) yoyoel (dot) com.
I'm open to advisory roles for mission-oriented technology companies. Please reach out if you're building or scaling a trust and safety or integrity 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
- 28 February 2024, Y. Roth and S. Lai, "Securing Federated Platforms: Collective Risks and Responses," Journal of Online Trust and Safety 2(2).
- 27 September 2023, "Getting the Facts Straight: Some Observations on the Fifth Circuit Ruling in Missouri v. Biden," Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
- 19 September 2023, "Trump Attacked Me. Then Musk Did. It Wasn't an Accident," New York Times.
- 24 July 2023, "Content Moderation's Legalism Problem," Lawfare.
- 21 June 2023, "Collective Security in a Federated World," Atlantic Council DFRLab Task Force for a Trustworthy Future Web (annex of the Scaling Trust on the Web report).
- 24 March 2023, "How Forcing TikTok to Completely Separate its US Operations Could Actually Undermine National Security," TechDirt.
- 8 February 2023, Testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
- 18 November 2022, "I Was the Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter. This Is What Could Become of It," New York Times.
- 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
- 27 February 2024, "Social Media and Knowledge Production," Cambridge University Overcoming Polarization Initiative, CounterPol Podcast.
- 18 October 2023, "The Future of the Internet Summit," Applied Social Media Lab at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University (panel discussion).
- 10 October 2023, "Elon Musk's Twitter Takeover," PBS Frontline.
- 27 September 2023, Code 2023 (with Kara Swisher).
- 8 September 2023, "The Twilight of Tech Transparency," Latsis Symposium 2023: Tackling Online Hate Speech and Strengthening Public Discourse, ETH Zurich.
- 30 August 2023, "The Future of Content Moderation," TechFreedom Tech Policy Podcast.
- 13 June 2023, "Decentralizing Content Moderation," Techdirt Podcast.
- 24 April 2023, “Misinformation is the New Malware,” RSA 2023 (panel discussion).
- 21 April 2023, “What I Was Thinking As We Were Sinking,” This American Life (with Casey Newton).
- 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 (panel discussion). (YouTube)
- 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 (panel discussion).