Twitter’s new chief, Elon Musk had promised during his Twitter takeover that eliminating child sex abuse materials from the platform was his top priority and just after a month after his takeover, he has delivered a more efficient mechanism to detect child sex abuse content that has doubled the daily suspension rate of accounts sharing such disturbing content.
Independent researcher, Andrea Stroppa, wrote a Twitter thread explaining how Twitter, under Musk’s leadership is making progress in its fight to eliminate illegal child sex abuse content.
The new faster, more efficient, and more aggressive mechanism that Twitter has deployed detects harmful materials and has already suspended tens of thousands of accounts. The new mechanism is also effectively detecting content that was shared in the past and regardless of its sharing timeline, the content will be taken down, and accounts sharing such posts will be suspended.
Before Musk’s takeover, the platform had a “zero-tolerance policy” about child sexual abuse materials but the mechanism failed to detect several harmful posts. Even after the posts were reported by minors and their caretakers, the platforms for unknown reasons, refused to take down the materials and had a bad track record of dealing with child safety issues.
In one infamous case, two minors were groomed by sex traffickers and blackmailed into sharing graphic photos and videos that were shared by their abusers on the platform. Despite multiple reports, Twitter failed to remove the content stating that it “didn’t find a violation” in the posts. The content gained 167,000 views and 2,223 retweets at one point and one of the victims and his mother have since launched a federal lawsuit against the company.
Stroppa claims that the platform now has deployed several advanced mechanisms that identify common strategies used by groomers to bypass detection, and third-party independent experts are assisting the platform to help fight child sex abuse.
Stroppa further said that the platform is now more determined than ever to fight child sexual exploitation and has developed teams of passionate experts to investigate and take action against such horrific violations.
“If Twitter is now fighting vigorously against child sexual exploitation content, it’s thanks to one person that set it as the #1 priority: Elon Musk. Twitter is now a safer place under Elon’s leadership. And this is just the beginning,” Stroppa concluded.
II. During these weeks, I worked as an independent researcher along Twitter's Trust and Safety team led by expert Ms. Ella Irwin. Twitter achieved some relevant results I want to share with you:
— Andrea Stroppa 🐺 Claudius Nero's Legion 🐺 (@andst7) December 3, 2022
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