HUGE NEWS: Twitter CEO Elon Musk Declares Purging The Platform Of Child Sexual Exploitation “Priority #1”

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The new czar of Twitter has a new decree he wants implemented. It is a substantial decree of which it will be extremely interesting to see critics of Musk scramble for a justification to hate this new decree. Eliza Bleu, a survivor of human trafficking and an advocate for victims, has been leading the fight to get rid of child sexual exploitation content on Twitter but was losing the battle to the perverts. She now has a new ally in her fight, Elon Musk, who said this is his “Priority #1.”

In fact, it is now being reported by firstpost.com that:

For over a decade, there has been inactivity by Twitter on the subject under the previous management who did not comprehensively addressed the matter of publishing content that demonstrates child sexual exploitation (CSE)

Wow! The most popular hashtag used to sell child sexual abuse material on Twitter is almost completely cleaned out.

— Eliza (@elizableu) November 20, 2022

After Elon Musk took over Twitter on 27 October this year, the social media giant has started “taking child exploitation seriously” and issues related to such similar content are being addressed and removed at a faster pace.

This comes after years of the inactivity by Twitter on the subject under the previous management who did not comprehensively addressed the matter of publishing content that demonstrates child sexual exploitation (CSE).

It was further reported that:

Eliza Bleu, a survivor of human trafficking and an advocate for victims, especially children has been putting pressure on the microblooging site for several years to remove CSE content and till Musk’s acquisition, it has been slow to pull down most of the material.

In an interview to Tesmanian, Bleu said that for the past couple of years, she has been reaching out to Twitter to take concrete steps, but the platform has “not actually done anything meaningful to combat the problem”.

She further said that for ten years, Twitter has not had a proper reporting form for content containing child sexual abuse material.

Bleu said that the new leadership under Musk is “taking child exploitation seriously”, but there is still much work to be done.

In a tweet, Bleu said, “Wow! The most popular hashtag used to sell child sexual abuse material on Twitter is almost completely cleaned out.”

Teslarati then went on to report that:

Bleu noted that there needs to be a separate tab for adults experiencing sexual exploitation as well. “It needs to be crystal clear for both adults and children experiencing sexual exploitation, and the reporting options need to be separate.”

The other key issue that the platform has been noticeably working on is the removal of hashtags known to be used to sell CSE. These are known hashtags that are used for trading CSE on the platform. In the video below, attorneys Lisa Haba and Peter Gentala, the two attorneys representing John Doe 1 and John Doe 2, explain how these tags are used.

These hashtags are mentioned in the lawsuit, and Teslarati investigated them to see if the platform was actually removing the content. We found that Twitter is removing most of the content; however, there are still accounts posting requests for content.

The screenshot below shows that Twitter removed content from the “Latest” tabs for one of those top hashtags. The tabs for “Photos” and “Videos” was also empty.  However, the “Top Tweets” section still had requests for CSE and used several other tags. Unfortunately, some of those tags are still very active. Bleu noted that the predators will continue to post using a variety of tags, but the tags could help authorities catch the criminals–which is one of the reasons why Teslarati is not publishing the tags.

Twitter is “taking child exploitation seriously,” the platform’s toughest critic on child sexual exploitation (CSE) told Teslarati in an exclusive interview.

Eliza Bleu is a survivor of human trafficking and an advocate for victims, especially children. Bleu has been putting pressure on Twitter for several years to remove CSE material at scale, and up until Elon Musk’s acquisition, Twitter has been slow to remove most of the content. She told Teslarati that she is happy to see the new changes the platform is implementing under Elon Musk’s new leadership.

She pointed out that under the new leadership, Twitter is “taking child exploitation seriously.” However, there is still much work to be done. There is an ongoing lawsuit against the social media platform that began before Elon Musk purchased it. The plaintiffs, John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 were minors who were sexually exploited, and videos of that exploitation were posted to Twitter. When the two, who are now adults, begged Twitter to remove the content, Twitter refused.

It was further reported that:

The content that the plaintiffs wanted Twitter to remove had over 167,000 views and 2,223 retweets.

Bleu pointed out a few key changes Twitter has made under its new leadership. The first changes were to its reporting system. In a tweet thread, Bleu made suggestions for Twitter, and so far, the platform has implemented two of those suggestions. The first one is clear and easy reporting. Twitter implemented a two-click reporting for children reporting their own abuse material.

Bleu noted that there needs to be a separate tab for adults experiencing sexual exploitation as well. “It needs to be crystal clear for both adults and children experiencing sexual exploitation, and the reporting options need to be separate.”

The other key issue that the platform has been noticeably working on is the removal of hashtags known to be used to sell CSE. These are known hashtags that are used for trading CSE on the platform. In the video below, attorneys Lisa Haba and Peter Gentala, the two attorneys representing John Doe 1 and John Doe 2, explain how these tags are used.

These hashtags are mentioned in the lawsuit, and Teslarati investigated them to see if the platform was actually removing the content. We found that Twitter is removing most of the content; however, there are still accounts posting requests for content.

The screenshot below shows that Twitter removed content from the “Latest” tabs for one of those top hashtags. The tabs for “Photos” and “Videos” was also empty.  However, the “Top Tweets” section still had requests for CSE and used several other tags. Unfortunately, some of those tags are still very active. Bleu noted that the predators will continue to post using a variety of tags, but the tags could help authorities catch the criminals–which is one of the reasons why Teslarati is not publishing the tags.

In her tweet thread, Bleu noted that some of the tags outside of the top three are actively engaging in sharing and posting the illegal content. Bleu told Teslarati that Twitter’s new sense of urgency makes her hopeful.

“After years of advocating for the minor survivors of Twitter, I’ve never been as hopeful as I am right now. I don’t expect perfection from a platform. All I’ve ever wanted was to see a sense of urgency around such a serious matter. In many of these cases, this is a matter of life or death for each victim, so every second matters.”

Bleu’s suggestion for Twitter is to continue prioritizing the removal of the CSE content, go through reports, go over all the backlogs of all the reports, and work hand-in-hand with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She added that Twitter should innovate around this issue using all the technology that’s available.

“There’s a lot of free technology available that platforms utilize and have had a lot of success,” Bleu added.  Her final request for Twitter and Elon Musk is “to tackle this issue at scale without violating innocent citizens’ digital privacy rights.”

There is not a lot that can be said or written about Elon Musk that hasbn’t already been written or said. However, The Raging Patruot did report back in August that Pieter “Mudge” Zatko, former head of security for Twitter, came forward as a whistleblower.

Zatko was hired directly by Jack Dorsey and Zatko was one of the top executives at Twitter.

He is blowing the whistle on Twitter and helping Elon Musk out in the process. 

Zatko is claiming that Twitter did lie to Musk about the bot problem on the social media platform. He also said that Twitter’s cybersecurity is a potential national security threat.

Alex Spiro, an attorney for Musk, said, “We have already issued a subpoena for Mr. Zatko, and we found his exit and that of other key employees curious in light of what we have been finding.”

“Mr. Zatko was fired from his senior executive role at Twitter for poor performance and ineffective leadership over six months ago,” a Twitter spokesperson said.