Susan Benesch founded and directs the Dangerous Speech Project to study speech that can inspire violence and to find ways to prevent it without infringing on freedom of expression.

To that end, she conducts research on methods to diminish harmful speech online, or the harm itself. She also serves tech companies as an unpaid, external source of ideas and critique, and speaks and publishes on governance of online content, hate speech, and disinformation. Trained as a human rights lawyer at Yale, Susan is also an adjunct professor at American University.