30Jun24 Roundup: The Music vs. The Machines

In today's issue:

• News from Around Supportlandia (and Beyond)

  • The Music vs. The Machines

  • 'No-go voices' still a go?

• Get Hired

  • Green Means Go

  • Eh, It’s Probably Fine

  • Tread Carefully

  • BINGO

  • Seriously, Maybe Don’t

Hey, apologies y'all – this was supposed to go out last night but a glitch with the job board prevented it. I hope you'll forgive the incorrect date; updating the newsletter links in all the jobs is tedious work.

A light issue this week, and probably the next few weeks! We're traveling back to home base, and I'm trying to be somewhat more present for the fam even if I'm not really taking any time off.

News from Around Supportlandia (and Beyond)

The Music vs. The Machines

Last week I rated a job from AI music generation company Suno.

And although I didn't get into it in my rating, the Bad Job Bingo shitposting focus group and I did talk about the many potential problems with this kind of product.

Namely that Suno would likely have had to ingest existing material during training in order to generate an output that sounds even vaguely like music, and the fact that the company itself could not say whether music generated using the platform is subject to copyright protection:^{1  2}

Why am I talking about this now? Because the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed lawsuits against Suno and another AI music generation Udio last week, alleging that the companies "could not have built a model capable of producing audio so similar to the Copyrighted Recordings without the initial act of copying those recordings."

In the lawsuits, the RIAA anticipates and argues against the AI music generation companies' likely defense of 'fair use', a deceptively complicated and frequently-litigated section of the Copyright Act that details some limitations on exclusive rights to copyrighted works.

Now, as a member of the fandom community and ardent supporter of the Organization for Transformative Works, I'm a fan of fair use and its power to allow creativity to flourish without the suffocating hand of Big Content (whoever that might be).

As a person who has to live and work in a world of copyright infringement and plagiarism engines disguised as the future of Tech, however, I have to be more pragmatic. These aren't small groups of fans trading fanfiction and fanart about their favorite ships and characters – these are endlessly ravenous robots whose appetites for intellectual property have the potential to destroy the livelihoods of artists from across the spectrum of creative life. There has to be checks and balances.

Also, I'm not sure it's possible to overstate the complexity of these issues, as much as I would like to celebrate the RIAA's challenge of AI music generation (or any valid legal challenge to AI's currently unchecked bulldozing through the world wide web).

For a mere toe-dipping into these cold, deep waters, read Cory Doctorow's piece from last week, Copyright takedowns are a cautionary tale that few are heeding, in which he discusses at length the way that Big Tech and Big Content (including members of the RIAA) have used claims of copyright violations to stifle creative competition and steal income from creators.

I don't have a neat tie-up to this story, so I'll let Lisa take us into the next bit. (To quote the fanfiction disclaimers of yesteryear, please don't sue me, I own nothing.)

'No-go voices' still a go?

Speaking of AI companies whose jobs have appeared in the Roundup...

I've talked previously about the danger that ever-evolving AI poses to the trust and safety of customer organizations. In that piece, I highlighted ElevenLabs' AI voice generator as one of those dangers, namely an incident from January in which it was used to clone President Biden's voice in a robocall telling New Hampshire Democrats not to vote in the presidential primary.

Following that incident, ElevenLabs announced a new set of policies and safeguards around "no-go voices:"

And yet, 404 Media's Emanuel Maiberg reported in March that he was easily able to bypass those safeguards to clone the voices of public figures like Biden:

Then, in May, Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic tried the same thing in a piece about whether ElevenLabs is actually capable of controlling what it’s unleashed:

Werzel ultimately came to the same conclusion that I have (over and over again):

Get Hired

I play Bad Job Bingo with every job listing that appears in the Roundup and categorize them according to how well (or poorly, if I hit Bingo) they do in the game.

However, please remember that a job appearing in a positive category isn’t an endorsement of any role or company, and a job appearing in a negative category doesn't mean I think you shouldn't apply if it works for you. Bad Job Bingo is simply an effort to give you a shortcut to finding roles that may match your needs and values.

These and past contestants can be found at Support Human Jobs.

It's been a while since I've done one, so have a Bad Job Bingo: Trust & Safety Edition.

Green Means Go

No flags, or green flags only! A true unicorn.

• Trust & Safety Analyst I ($60k-$75k) at Flodesk (Remote Various States)

  • Solid, straightforward job description with no red or yellow flags and a decent salary for what appears to be a truly entry-level Trust & Safety role.

Eh, It’s Probably Fine

A few flags popped up, but no serious ones.

• Director, Trust & Safety ($135k-$205k) at Vimeo (Remote US-New York City, NY)

  • Furthermore, you will use your experience to balance the operational realities of a fast-growing business against continuously evolving policies while working to create an exceptional customer experience. – Whew, that's a sentence, ain't it?

  • Build out and be accountable for all Trust & Safety user experience and performance metrics globally – They mention that this role has global responsibilities a few times, and as much as I appreciate the close relationship with Support, considering the scale of the work, I think this should really be a VP-level title.

  • Also, I'm not sure why the application asks for college degree info considering it's not a listed requirement. And asks for desired salary (even though there's salary transparency, which is a little weird). Salary is also a little wide.

  • I don't think it's concerning enough to go into Tread Carefully, but I do think I would ask some specific questions about salary, structure, and seniority during the interview process.

• Senior Manager, Trust and Safety Operations (Americas) ($120k-$198k) at Twitch (Remote US)

  • Twitch is so far the only company that's even paid cursory lip service to mental health (they reference it in the Benefits section of their Careers page, but it's mentioned separately), so they've got that going for them.

  • The salary is suspiciously wide, and, in my opinion, the low end is too low for a role this senior. Otherwise, it seems like a standard Trust & Safety Ops role.

• Manager, Safety and Integrity Analysis ($118k-$313k) at Github (Remote US)

  • Communicating the impact of abuse, the impact of our moderation, gaps in our detections, safety risks, and other threats to GitHub to our executive leadership team. – Calling this out because this is a key and core part of Trust and Safety work, but I rarely see it spelled out so clearly in job descriptions. Big green flag for me, as it indicates whoever wrote this JD really knows the work and cares about T&S.

  • Putting this in Eh, It's Probably Fine because the salary is quite wide and I'd like to see the title be a bit more senior given the required qualifications, but otherwise it's nice to see a T&S JD written with such obvious care and skill.

• Enforcement Lead, Trust & Safety ($280k-$300k) at Anthropic (Remote US)

  • As with their other roles, the person in this role will need to be in office 25% of the time.

  • Also requires proficiency in SQL and Python.

  • I continue to wish that Anthropic would address how they're mitigating the mental health risks of Trust & Safety work, and there are some minor flags ("fast-paced environment," hello darkness my old friend), but it's a solid Eh, It's Probably Fine.

• Program Manager, Community ($67k-$143k) at Twitch (Onsite US-New York City, NY)

  • Again, the salary range is really wide, and the low end sucks. But everything else seems pretty straightforward.

• Helpdesk Analyst ($83k) at ACLU (Onsite US-San Francisco, CA)

  • The ACLU seeks a full-time position of Helpdesk Analyst in the Information Technology Department of the ACLU’s National office in San Francisco, CA. This is a hybrid role that has in-office requirements of four (4) days per week. – Friends. Comrades. Four days a week in-office is not a hybrid role. That's an on-site role with one day a week telework-authorized. C'mon, y'all.

  • Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and demonstrate grace under pressure – Eehhhhh, why though? You're serving internal audiences – what kind of culture are you fostering over there, ACLU?

  • Overall, I'm going to put this in Eh, It's Probably Fine, with a caveat that I really think anyone applying to this role ought to press hard on the "demonstrate grace under pressure" bit. The duties of the role seem pretty straightforward, and while I'm not in love with the salary, it's not terrible.

Tread Carefully

Didn’t quite hit bingo, but there were several yellow flags or more than one red flag.

• Manager, Trust and Safety ($122k-$184k) at Patreon (Hybrid US-San Francisco, CA; New York City, NY; Austin, TX)

  • Again, the duties seem pretty standard for this role, but I'm noticing a pattern in Trust & Safety roles not being properly leveled for the work they're expected to do and the influence they're expected to have.

  • I don't know how Patreon's divisions are structured; maybe they're all just Managers, but my experience in tech makes me think that's unlikely.

  • Team player and a fast learner with a creative, empathetic, and fun attitude. – Can we not? Can we just not require a T&S professional to have a "fun" attitude, especially when you haven't given any space to explaining how you'll care for their mental well-being? Ugh.

  • Honestly, that pisses me off enough to put this into Tread Carefully.

• Enterprise Customer Experience Manager ($86k-$132k) at Vimeo (Onsite US-New York City, NY)

  • The Customer Experience Team is seeking a thought leader – Look at me not noping right out of this nonsense. That's growth!

  • Design and implement customer experience initiatives that drive onboarding, adoption, retention, and organic growth – I realize Experience tends to be a catch-all discipline, but this duty feels very vague and hand-wavy to me.

  • Strong leadership and diplomatic stakeholder management skills – When I see the word "diplomatic" or any variation, I immediately start to worry about internal collaboration culture (or lack thereof).

  • Strong project management skills, organization and attention to detail; A curious and, learning mindset – I swear to god: EVERY TIME, WITHOUT FAIL.

• Sr. Policy Manager, Trust & Safety ($141k-$151k) at Match Group (Hybrid US-New York City, NY)

  • I am really struggling to understand this role at Match Group in comparison to the Trust & Safety Policy Manager role at Tinder (one of the dating apps in Match Group's portfolio).

  • The salaries are very close, and in some ways, the duties of this role seem junior to those of the Trust & Safety Policy Manager, yet this role requires more experience (although not much more). I don't know what's going on over there or how their T&S teams are structured, but it's pretty concerning.

  • In the context of both roles, I think Tread Carefully is warranted.

• Trust & Safety Policy Manager ($107k-$140k) at Tinder (Hybrid US-West Hollywood, CA)

  • We are looking for a Trust & Safety Policy Manager to support our Policy Team. Reporting to the Director, Global Policy, you will oversee an existing team of Policy Analysts to develop, maintain, and implement our Trust & Safety policies. – I see Tinder is continuing the trend of down-leveling T&S roles. This really needs to have a more senior title.

  • Develop, refine, and operationalize Tinder’s user policies to ensure that they can be enforced consistently and at scale around the world – Okay, so what's the Director, Global Policy doing?

  • In collaboration with the Director, establish and execute on a strategic vision for the team and manage ongoing policy related projects – No, but seriously. What's the Director, Global Policy actually doing?

  • Build strong relationships with Product, Engineering, Comms, Marketing, Legal and other partners and act as the Policy Consultant. – .....

  • Act as a global escalation point of contact for policy questions and handle internal communications for policy issues – REALLY REALLY. WHAT IS THE DIRECTOR, GLOBAL POLICY DOING?

  • Build and articulate policy strategy and changes to internal stakeholders – I recognize that tree.

  • 3-4 years of Trust & Safety or other relevant experience, at least 1 year in Trust & Safety Policy; 1-2 years of experience managing or supervising other people's work – Okay, my original reaction to this was quite a bit stronger, but I reached out to a T&S friend who reviewed this job listing and wasn't that worried by the lower requirements.

  • I'm upgrading this to Tread Carefully based on their wisdom, but I'm still concerned that the junior title and experience requirements coupled with the pretty senior job duties is not a great mix for success.

• Quality Assurance Program Lead, Trust & Safety Operations ($160k-$184k) at Roblox (Onsite US-San Mateo, CA)

  • So this job closed and then re-opened at some point since early February. Which, uh, seems like not the greatest sign, you know?

• Trust & Safety Lead (No comp given) at Snap (Onsite London, UK)

  • Job application is through Workday. My condolences.

  • I know I sound like a broken record, but there's a misalignment between this role's duties and its title/seniority. Also, no salary transparency.

• Customer Success Engineer II ($66k-$100k) at Match Group (Remote US-Los Angeles, CA)

  • It sounds like they prefer hybrid for this role, but say they are open to remote.

  • Usually I see this role posted as a Solutions Engineer, not a Customer Success Engineer. I kind of dig it!

  • Results-oriented, self-directed, and inquisitiveStrong attention to detail and a desire to deliver accurately, efficiently, and to a high standard – EVERY. TIME.

  • $66,000 - $100,000 a year – I was still mostly on board until I saw this salary. They want a discount engineer. LOL K!

• Senior Analyst, Community Operations (No comp given) at Twitch (Remote Australia-Sydney)

  • This role seems like an interesting blend of Trust & Safety, Community, and Customer Support. Alas, there's no salary transparency, though, so into Tread Carefully it goes.

• Child Safety Enforcement Specialist, Trust and Safety (No comp given) at Google (Onsite Dublin, Ireland)

  • Shamelessly stealing commentary from when I looked at a similar role listed at YouTube:

  • I'm not putting this in Tread Carefully because anything in the job is jumping out at me specifically – let's say it's a general wariness about Google's working environment and the fact that, again, the company doesn't address how they protect the mental health of those working in Trust & Safety at the company.

  • Also, no salary transparency.

BINGO

Welp.

• Trust & Safety Specialist ($78k-$117k) at Snap (Onsite US-New York City, NY)

  • Job application is through Workday. My condolences.

  • Snap contributes to human progress – Sometimes all you can do is laugh.

  • Due to the nature of Trust & Safety (T&S) work, you should be willing and able to work with sensitive issues and content that may be considered offensive or disturbing. Our team has carefully devised measures and support in place to ensure wellness for all of our team members. – I think Snap might be the first company since I've started doing Bad Job Bingo to actually mention anything about wellness for Trust & Safety team members, so it has that going for it.

  • Unfortunately, it also has enough flags that it hits BINGO:

    • "all working together to create an environment that fosters individual and collective creativity, growth, innovation, and most of all fun."

    • The "human progress" thing is basically "our mission is to change the world"

    • "We want someone who is able to keep calm under pressure"

    • "Work in a constantly evolving environment, adapting to new policies, workflows, and tooling"

    • "showing flexibility and impeccable teamwork in order to effectively prioritize competing demands"

  • The pay also kind of stinks for an onsite role in NYC.

• Community & Identity Operations Specialist ($44k-$78k) at Snap (Onsite US-Los Angeles, CA)

  • Job application is through Workday. My condolences.

  • Pay is shit, especially for onsite in LA, especially for a multi-lingual role.

• Manager, Trust & Safety Complex Investigations ($88k-$100k) at Turo (Onsite US-Phoenix, AR)

  • Team player with a positive attitude, high energy, high integrity, and ethics.– Again, such efficiency at getting to BINGO! Also, after all those super-specific requirements, "must have ethics" is sincerely hilarious.

• Bilingual Trust & Safety Investigator ("Competitive" comp not given) at Turo (Onsite CAN-Toronto, ON)

  • You are a team player with a positive mental attitude, high energy, high integrity, strong work ethic, enthusiasm, sense of humor, and a commitment to the mission – So many flags in a single sentence! I appreciate their commitment to an efficient Bad Job Bingo game.

Seriously, Maybe Don’t

Don't say I didn't warn you.

• Customer Experience Lead ($20-$25/hr) at Dutch (Hybrid US-Oakland, CA)

  • This one was submitted by John C. Thanks! John reports that he interviewed for a Director role at this company some time ago, and they're now hiring for Lead role that's hybrid out of Oakland, CA.

  • So, this one feels like a whole story. One of the co-founders of this company, a "serial entrepreneur," started with Hims & Hers, which was an erectile dysfunction and male baldness company and a women's birth control and mental health meds company, respectively.

    • Of this founding experience, apparently, Spector's "biggest lesson from Hims & Hers was the importance of branding." Because when you're dealing with people's mental and physical health, the most important thing is obviously being recognizable.

  • Anyway, today's subject company, Dutch, is described as "a fast-growing tech company that is revolutionizing veterinary care" which is always frustrating for me. Everything is always "revolutionize this" or "disrupt that" – like, are you actually making vet care better? Or are you just trying to cash in by putting local vets out of business and making vet care harder to access and worse for everyone?

  • They realized the gap between suffering pets and high-quality, specialized care was far too wide. Dutch was founded to provide our pets with modern telemedicine—treatments rooted in science delivered monthly with ongoing support from trusted vets. After all, every pet should be able to access what it needs to live its happiest and healthiest life. – So...no to the former, yes to the latter. Honestly, it sounds to me like they invented a gap in vet care and then raised on it.

  • We want to hear from people that are excited by tackling the hard problems – Is the hard problem that Dutch can't or won't properly compensate people for the work they're doing? (Spoiler alert, I guess).

  • Because this role balances direct customer support with supporting agents who are doing the same, this role requires a highly motivated individual who is energized by curating best-in-class customer experiences, developing long-lasting relationships, and acting as a mentor to CX agents. – Oh, I bet it then comes with best-in-class pay, right? RIGHT?

  • Customer Outreach – Oh boy, now what does that mean?

  • Additional Projects: Collaborate with CX & Ops teams to build a process to monitor, flag, and send outreach as needed for late orders. – Woof – pun intended. 1) How many late orders are we talking that you need a task force for handling them, and 2) what exactly is the CX Director doing, assuming they exist?

  • The only two "benefits" that appear in that section are "competitive compensation" (oh just wait) and "hybrid work environment," which – say it with me! – IS NOT A BENEFIT.

  • $20 - $25 an hour – YEP. YOU READ THAT RIGHT. $20 to $25 per hour in Oakland, CA!

  • Now, we all know that I am a petty bitch. So, did I look up the minimum livable wage in Oakland as of 2023? Sure did!

    • A single person with no children needs $84,026 after taxes to support a comfortable lifestyle in San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley.

    • That is $40.40 per hour for those of you following along at home.

  • This position is Full-time, 40 hours per week; Ideal Shift: Sunday - Thursday; *Shifts are subject to change based on business needs. *We will strive to give as much notice as possible if shift changes should be needed. – Let's review: this is a lead role for managing multi-channel support agents, offering frontline support yourself, and executing duties that should be undertaken by a possibly fictional Director. For $20-$25 in Oakland, CA. Talk about some branding!

1  H/T to Erica Clayton for linking me to news about the lawsuits and for the screenshot from Suno's FAQs.

2  Notably, I can no longer find this FAQ on Suno's website.