Curtis Barnes

Senior Compliance Manager, Content & Safety Compliance Function TikTok

Curtis leads risk management and compliance programmes at a major global platform, where he has spent three years building its global Digital Regulatory Compliance & Assurance function - owning the frameworks connecting risk and regulatory inputs and outputs to controls, owners, indicator tracking, testing programmes, and leadership reporting. He has designed and implemented audit programmes across the EU Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act for multiple large-scale platforms, and has served as an independent DSA auditor. Curtis has worked across government, platform compliance, and multistakeholder organisations, leading investigations into online safety frameworks at several of the world's most prominent platforms, bringing an accountability lens to platform risk that informs his current work on operationalising findings. He managed the Transparency Coalition for the Global Network Initiative, building frameworks for regulatory engagement and public policy partnerships between governments, platforms, and civil society. He also advised the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet on frameworks for government social media analysis following the Christchurch terror attacks and the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch Terror Attack. Beginning his career in litigation, he later worked for a digital communications regulator, led legal research into regulating AI and synthetic media, and sits on the editorial board of the International Journal of AI and Ethics. He is based in London.