As more information emerges from the “Twitter Files” about how the social media giant was administered before Elon Musk took over, some of its past bosses — such as ex-CEO Jack Dorsey — seem to be getting very nervous.
Most recently, a lawsuit was filed against Twitter claiming that its previous managers refused to take down images and videos of a teenage sex trafficking victim because they shockingly claimed it “didn’t find a violation” of the company’s policies in the posts, the New York Post reported.
The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California on Wednesday and alleges that Twitter made money off the videos and images of a 13-year-old boy engaging in sex acts, videos that the suit says was child porn, and sexual abuse material.
This is not the first time Twitter has been sued for allowing sex traffickers to remain unopposed on the site.
The now 17-year-old boy says that sex traffickers began talking to him while posing as a 16-year-old girl on Snapchat, and eventually they began sending each other explicit nude photos.
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Eventually, the teen says that the traffickers began blackmailing him, threatening to release the photos to his parents and school friends unless he did what they ordered him to do, the filing adds.
The videos they demanded that he send them quickly became more explicit and he even agreed to include another child in them. The victim finally blocked the blackmailers, but not long afterward his videos and photos started showing up on Twitter, posted on accounts known to share child sexual abuse material.
Victims spent months alerting Twitter and reporting the posts, but Twitter refused to act until federal law enforcement agents got involved.
The victim only became aware of the Twitter posts because his classmates began sharing the videos and taunting him. In the suit, the victim said he was subject to “teasing, harassment, vicious bullying” and the abuse made him “suicidal.”
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The boy’s parents filed complaints with the school, made police reports, and also continued to plead with Twitter to remove the posts. But even after proof of the child’s age was supplied to Twitter, the social media giant did not remove the posts.
Repeated requests to remove the posts were ignored, the lawsuit states. By Jan. 28, the posts had earned 167,000 views and 2,223 retweets.
But not only did Twitter not remove the posts, it said the child porn didn’t even violate its terms of service.
“Thanks for reaching out. We’ve reviewed the content, and didn’t find a violation of our policies, so no action will be taken at this time,” a message from Twitter read, the lawsuit says.
The victim responded by blasting Twitter for its claim that the videos did not violate any rules.
“What do you mean you don’t see a problem? We both are minors right now and were minors at the time these videos were taken. We both were 13 years of age. We were baited, harassed, and threatened to take these videos that are now being posted without our permission. We did not authorize these videos AT ALL and they need to be taken down,” the teen wrote, according to the filing.
It was only when the Department of Homeland Security became involved that Twitter finally removed the posts.
This is all something that Elon Musk made his new “Priority #1” when he was finally firmly in control of Twitter. And it must be working because advertisers are starting to come back.
In keeping with his pledge to let the world know what was going on inside Twitter, by Nov. 20, Musk noted that Twitter was moving to shut down the accounts of the child sex traffickers that previous Twitter bosses ignored.
Priority #1
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 21, 2022
Musk moved quickly and eliminated many of these accounts, and the controversy over Twitter’s former inaction brought previous Twitter employees to take some actions of their own.
Several members of Twitter’s original Trust & Safety Council resigned claiming that it was Musk who was putting Twitter users at risk, despite that for years they did nothing to stop child sex traffickers from distributing their wares.
Three of us resigned from Twitter’s Trust & Safety Council today: @eirliani @podesta_lesley and me. Here’s why https://t.co/h05TblfGIO pic.twitter.com/iqcHvhbgms
— annecollier (@annecollier) December 8, 2022
Conservative Twitter user Mike Cernovich posted that these former Twitter executives belong in jail as he commented on the New York Post story we noted above. Musk replied to that with a cutting jab aimed at previous Twitter employees.
It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
This brought former CEO Jack Dorsey to his own account to claim that Musk’s proclamation was “false.” And Musk vehemently disagreed.
No, it is not.
When Ella Irwin, who now runs Trust & Safety, joined Twitter earlier this year, almost no one was working on child safety.
She raised this with Ned & Parag, but they rejected her staffing request.
I made it top priority immediately.@ellagirwin
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
At the same time, Ned was spending millions of dollars on Warriors seats. Super messed up priorities.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
Ella Irwin also chimed in to support Musk’s position that Jack Dorsey was not telling the truth.
I wish this was false but my experience this year supports this. I fought hard to get funding to replace the people working on this who left in early 2022 and was told no. At one point there were 0 engineers and very few employees working on CSE and still no funding.
— Ella Irwin (@ellagirwin) December 9, 2022
In all, it seems that from the evidence supplied by the recent child sex abuse lawsuits, and the support Musk has gotten from past employees upholding his claim that previous Twitter execs did little to prevent the dissemination of child abuse, Twitter’s past execs and employees have a lot to answer for.
It appears that Twitter was more concerned with shadowbanning conservatives, limiting the reach of Republican candidates, and quashing Americans’ free speech, than it was with attacking child sex abusers.
