Escalation matrix (template)
Fill in names or roles for your team. The scenarios are real categories; owners are placeholders until you customize.
Customize this page in the repo (or your internal wiki) so nobody has to Slack “who owns DMCA?” during an incident.
Legal & safety
When the scenario says counsel or law enforcement, your job is to notify the right person and preserve records—not to negotiate jurisdiction or make representations about user data alone.
| Scenario | First responder | Escalate to | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier A request in media@ | [Media ops lead] | [Second pair of eyes] if first week or edge case | Use checklist; log oddities in decision log. |
| Tier B / money / multi-letter | [Media ops lead] | [Counsel] + [Business owner] | See Commercial track. |
| DMCA filed; platform counter-notice | [Media ops lead] | Counsel immediately | Do not restart publication arguments without counsel. |
| Letter deleted + active approval | [Who performs deletion] | [Media ops] same day for notice | Deletion SOP from media@. |
| Safety / abuse report (safety@) | [Trust & safety owner] | [Counsel] if legal threat or LE | Trust & safety ops. |
| Law enforcement inquiry | [Legal / designated recipient] | Counsel | Public LE guidelines; document everything. |
| User in acute crisis (mail or social) | [On-call responder] | N/A — not therapy | Link Crisis resources; do not provide clinical advice. |
| Research / academic use | [Support or designated research contact] | [Counsel] if consent unclear | Research vs media. |
| Site outage / data incident | [Engineering on-call] | [Leadership] + [Counsel] if personal data | Follow your security incident runbook if you have one. |
Contact roster (fill in)
- Counsel: [firm / email / phone]
- Business owner: [name]
- Trust & safety: [name]
- Engineering on-call: [how to page]