X has appointed a new head of safety, almost a year after the previous executive left the role. On Tuesday, the firm said that Yale Cohen had been hired as Head of Brand Safety and Advertiser Solutions, and that Kylie McRoberts had been promoted to Head of Safety.
Leading X’s safety initiatives, including efforts to ensure advertisers that the site doesn’t promote hate speech or terrorist content, would fall to the two admirably. The business announced earlier this year that, following a large reduction in its safety team, it intended to hire 100 additional workers in this area.
Head of safety has been a particularly fraught position since Elon Musk took over the company previously known as Twitter. Musk has previously clashed with his safety leads and McRoberts is the third person to hold the title in less than two years. Previously, Yoel Roth resigned shortly after the disastrous rollout of Twitter Blue in 2022. Roth was replaced by Ella Irwin, who resigned last year after Musk publicly criticized employees for enforcing policies around misgendering.
Not much is known about McRoberts, but she is apparently an existing member of X’s safety team (her X account is currently private and a LinkedIn profile appears to have been recently deleted). “During her time at X, she has led initiatives to increase transparency in our moderation practices through labels, improve security with passkeys, as well as building out our new Safety Center of Excellence in Austin,” X said in a statement.
