Cinder Improves Content Moderation

While I was researching more about North Korean fake employees after our own experiences (https://blog.knowbe4.com/how-a-north-korean-fake-it-worker-tried-to-infiltrate-us), I was looking to see who else was publicly sharing their own similar experiences. Not a lot of companies are eager to share if North Korean fake employees show up in their resume pile or accidentally get hired.

At the time, I only found two other companies that were publicly talking about it. One was Cinder er (https://www.cinder.co/), who had detailed their own experiences on their blog (https://www.cinder.co/blog-posts/north-korean-engineers-in-our-application-pile).

I reached out to Cinder’s Head of Engineering, Declan Cummings (https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/declancummings). Declan seemed to be a bit of the frontman on Cinder’s North Korean experiences and that makes sense because Declan, as a side job, helps North Korean defectors integrate into society (outside of North Korea) and improve their own lives. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors at Lumen, a US-based NGO, researching and developing innovative technology to provide all North Koreans with access to uncensored sources of information and media as well as safe channels of communication.

I quickly learned Declan was the expert on North Korean fake employees between the two of us. His discussions helped me write several articles (https://blog.knowbe4.com/hiring-north-korean-fake-employee-defenses), a white paper (https://www.knowbe4.com/hubfs/North-Korean-Fake-Employees-Are-Everywhere-WP_EN-us.pdf), and a presentation (https://info.knowbe4.com/north-korea-secret-it-army) on the world’s experience with North Korean fake employees.

Cinder

After chatting with Declan, I felt like I had accidentally stumbled upon some new operational genre I had never been aware of. Cinder is attempting to help companies that host user-provided content, like Patreon and BeReal, more efficiently and effectively push back on undesirable content, such as hate speech, child exploitation, terrorism, and state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. Declan’s role at Cinder makes sense since he did the same in a prior role at Meta.

For years, I have been watching and struggling with online media’s challenges in fighting the good fight against objectionable content while at the same time not simply being overly aggressive in censoring different opinions. Partially, I am someone who strongly believes in the U.S. First Amendment and, more broadly in free speech. But at the same time, I respect private companies that should have the ability to enforce content moderation standards.

Nearly all public media sites do some form of content moderation. The ones that do not are places you do not want to hang out. And it can be very difficult, at massive scales, to get it right, and to do it quickly. I have had social media block many of my posts mocking something. Any human reading it could see that it is satire, but machines have a hard time recognizing the difference.

I have had to appeal temporary blocks. Sometimes, my appeal is heard within minutes, and other times, it takes days. Sometimes, I have had to appeal something many times only to finally be approved on the third time, days later, and my joke is no longer nearly as timely. Good content moderation is harder, especially at the gigantic scales the Internet allows these days.

There are a lot of complexities, different laws, different country, state, region and local requirements. And, of course, each social media entity has its own policies and what they define as objectionable. There are always individuals who want to push the envelope. It is an adversarial, evolving landscape that has a lot of parallels to cybersecurity.

Cinder’s software enables platforms to focus on what they do best – growing an engaging user base – without sacrificing user experience. Cinder works with top online platforms and generative AI companies to manage and automate every aspect of content detection, moderation and compliance. Declan’s team of engineers builds top-notch software that responds and combats a difficult, shifting threat landscape. Similar to cybersecurity, the threat actors are persistent and well-funded. Combating these threats requires tools that are just as advanced as that of the threat actors. It is critical work that counteracts a global and important problem.

While Cinder’s encounter with North Koreans was likely not targeted, the North Koreans that applied to Cinder encountered a team that is both knowledgeable about North Korean cyber threats and broadly aware of the harm that can be caused by inauthentic actors on the internet. This awareness led to Cinder’s blog post and us getting in touch to share notes and insights.

I was glad to learn more about North Korean fake employees from Declan and more about content moderation from Cinder.?

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