TrustCon 2023 Call for Proposals

TrustCon is a global conference dedicated to the work of trust and safety professionals, convening trust and safety experts from tech, civil society, academia, and government with the goal of knowledge building and networking. TrustCon 2023 will feature a range of programming that is engaging, actionable, and timely, facilitating interactive learning experiences for all attendees. Attendees will also have the opportunity to network with their peers, meet cross-functional colleagues, and connect with people from a range of different stakeholder groups. Join us July 11-13, 2023 in San Francisco for the 2nd Annual TrustCon! 

The proposal deadline is Friday, March 17, 2023. Acceptance notifications will be sent by Sunday, April 30, 2023.

We’re accepting submissions for the following tracks:

  • Engineering
  • Operations
  • Partnerships
  • Policy
  • Product
  • Research

Note: Whether we include a track will depend on the quantity and quality of proposals received for a given track.

Additionally, here are some topics that would do well at TrustCon 2023:

  • Advocating for budgets for T&S teams
  • Careers in trust & safety
  • Leadership for T&S
  • Careers beyond management
  • Building cross-functional teams
  • Privacy and security as a trust and safety professional
  • The nuts and bolts of trust and safety
  • Labeling for policy enforcement and recommendations
  • Transparency reporting
  • Proactive vs. reactive processes at scale
  • Designing reputation systems
  • Wellness and resilience for T&S professionals 
  • Building a resilient team
  • Design and implementation of wellness programs
  • Trust & safety and society
  • Bias in algorithms
  • History and evolution of content policy norms
  • How we built this and what we learned

Submission Types

Note: We highly recommend securing organizational approval before submitting your proposal.

Lightning Talks

A lightning talk is a brief presentation (5-7 minutes) accompanied by slides. Lightning talks are great opportunities to celebrate a success, share a new idea, or get feedback on early work. You can also use a lightning talk to introduce yourself and talk about your T&S journey. All TrustCon 2023 lightning talks should be focused on some aspect of trust and safety.

Successful lightning talks usually consist of 1-3 key ideas and/or takeaways and feature slides with images rather than text. Think of this submission type as an opportunity to share a short, illustrated story with the community!

Important notes:

  • Only one presenter will be accepted per lightning talk; we will not accept lightning talks with co-presenters.
  • If your lightning talk is accepted, you’ll be required to send your slides to TSPA prior to the conference.

Panels

A panel is a 50-minute thematic session consisting of 3-4 panelists and facilitated by a moderator. With this submission type, you have two options:

  • Propose a full panel. When submitting a full panel, you must provide the theme/topic, possible questions to be asked and discussed, the name of the moderator, and the names of the panelists. You may list yourself as either the organizer and/or moderator or panelist.
  • Propose to be a panelist. When submitting to be a panelist, you must provide a range of themes/topics to which you are willing to speak.

Panels are great opportunities to investigate a topic from different points of view. Successful panels require a strong moderator who can facilitate conversation and ask succinct questions. Successful panels also require panelists who are willing to engage openly, honestly, and respectfully with one another—especially when they disagree.

Important notes:

  • If your proposed panel is accepted, you are considered the panel organizer and will be responsible for communicating important information (i.e., registration requirements, deadlines) to and scheduling all meetings with your panelists.
  • We will prioritize panel submissions that are intentionally inclusive of different lived and professional experiences, races, ethnicities, ages, genders, disabilities, economic statuses, and other diverse backgrounds. We reserve the right to add panelists to a session to ensure inclusivity and representation.

Presentations

A presentation is a 20-minute talk that may or may not be accompanied by slides. Presentations are great opportunities to share current work, lessons learned, or how you and your team have built a product, service, policy, or organization. You may also want to present research you and your team have recently completed and/or published. Each presentation will be followed by time for Q&A.

Successful presentations are well-organized and rehearsed with explicit key points and take-aways.

Important notes:

  • Only one presenter will be accepted per presentation; we will not accept presentations with co-presenters.
  • If your presentation is accepted and your presentation includes slides, you will be required to send your slides to TSPA prior to the conference.

Workshops

A workshop is a 90-120-minute hands-on, in-person session focused on a specific audience and with specific goals in mind. For example, you may want to plan and facilitate a workshop for trust and safety managers about how to provide online and offline security for their frontline employees.

Successful workshops involve demonstrations, engage participants in collaborative work, meet predetermined goals, and generally result in an artifact of some kind (i.e., shared notes, a template, a set of preliminary evaluation metrics).

With this submission type, you will be asked to indicate the goals and outcomes of the proposed workshop, the proposed format and/or schedule of activities, the ideal number of participants for your workshop, and how the workshop will contribute to the trust and safety community.

Important notes:

  • We will accept up to two presenters per proposed workshop (that is, we are accepting co-facilitators for workshop sessions).
  • TSPA will provide workshop supplies such as pens, sticky notes, whiteboards, and whiteboard markers. If your proposal is accepted and you need additional supplies, you will need to provide those yourself.
  • If you want to provide pre-work for your workshop, you will need to include a description in your proposal. You’ll also need to make all pre-work (for example, readings) available to potential participants during workshop registration.

Submission Form

You’ll need to create an account and login here to submit a proposal. (Note: during account creation, you’ll be asked for a bio and headshot; these will be included in the program should your proposal be accepted.) Once you’ve created an account, you’ll submit your proposal by selecting “Add new submission”. For each submission, you’ll be asked to provide specific details, select an appropriate track, note who is allowed to attend, whether your session can be recorded, and how your proposal is relevant to the T&S field.

The Programming Committee will use the following criteria to determine acceptance:

  • Does the submission explicitly benefit the trust and safety field and/or practice?
  • Does the submission evidence recency bias? For example, what is considered a trending topic right now should be carefully considered with regard to overall programming.
  • Does the submission introduce new voices, perspectives, and conversations?
  • Does the proposal evidence general applicability? For example, it’s an advantage if a proposal includes an honest assessment of what went wrong, what to avoid, lessons learned, etc.
  • Does the submission reify existing biases and/or prejudices? (If so, reject.)
  • Does the submission describe a sales pitch or product demonstration? (If so, reject.)

Incomplete proposals will not be considered. Email trustcon@tspa.org if you have any questions.

FAQs

What happens next?

The Programming Committee, made up of TSPA staff, TSPA members, and trust and safety professionals serving as volunteers, will review all proposals during the month of March. 

If your submission is incomplete and/or does not meet the criteria outlined above, it will be rejected without further review.

Completed proposals will be reviewed by the Programming Committee. Before the end of April, we will email you to let you know whether your proposal has been accepted. In the case of a presentation, panel, or workshop, we may ask you to consider collaborating with another applicant if there’s significant overlap in topics, themes, and/or goals.

If your proposal is accepted, members of the Programming Committee will follow up with you in the coming months to ensure we have your bio, headshot, slides (if applicable), and any additional information needed for a successful conference program. If you have any questions about your proposal, please contact trustcon@tspa.org.

What if my proposal isn’t accepted?

If your proposal isn’t accepted, but you’d still like to participate at TrustCon, please email trustcon@tspa.org. There may be other opportunities!

If my proposal is accepted, will I receive a registration discount?

Yes, all speakers (both TSPA members and non-members) will receive a registration discount.

Are you offering recording opportunities for waitlisted proposals again this year?

No, not this year.

What if my proposal is accepted, but I can’t attend?

If you can’t attend, you can have a colleague present on your behalf. If you cannot find someone to present on your behalf, your submission will be removed from the program.

Are you offering a virtual program this year?

No, we’re not offering a virtual program this year. Instead, we’ve decided to invest in recording as many sessions as possible and making the recordings available after TrustCon.

Are there provisions for COVID and other contingencies?

Anyone submitting an in-person proposal should be prepared to attend TrustCon 2023 in person if their proposal is accepted.

However, we know that COVID uncertainties will carry on throughout the year. If restrictions issued by the United States government or your home country prevent you from traveling to San Francisco, we will make sure your work is included in the program (via video or delivered by an attendee). If we are forced to cancel the in-person component of TrustCon 2023 completely, the entire program may be delivered virtually.