Twitter and Child Sex Material

[Cailleach1]

Hi,

I wonder if you knowledgeable people can thrown some light on what is happening on twitter wrt this. Someone said that since Musk took over, the department that dealt with this has been shut down. They said they read this in the Guardian.

Now contrary to this, I remember reading something recently (can't remember where) that alleged what existed under the previous management was laughable. Maybe a nominal department, starved of labour and resources. With the effect that child abuse material was not dealt with, or readily removed. A pretence.

I also read recently that Musk had made changes to make reporting of child abuse material easier, and was taking it more seriously. So, the opposite of the allegation he got rid of a department to deal with the child sex abuse. Or, does that mean he is creating a new department.

I am not on twitter. The person I spoke with said they had never come across any child abuse material on twitter.

This post by Graham Linehan sheds some light on it. It does seem to be the case that since Musk arrived, Twitter has been getting rid of child abuse accounts:

open.substack.com/pub/grahamlinehan/p/how-to-move-an-overton-window?r=7vc2e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Some information here. The department that was "dealing" with it would have been shut down because they weren't doing their job.

Some info here:

twitter.com/elizableu/status/1601595700110032896
twitter.com/andst7/status/1601365933561217024

There's a long discussion with Musk on the subject linked there - haven't listened to it.

Thank you.

I never saw abuse material but did see plenty of MAP accounts (minor attracted person). If I came across a MAP bio I blocked and ran though, I never looked at their tweets. Ditto anything remotely sexual.

Some have suggested that there is a right wing or hostile state conspiracy to accept and link MAPS with the LGBT alphabet soup and I often do assume some of the more bonkers misogyny and homophobia on twitter has been just that. However the previous Twitter admin's complete acceptance of MAPs whilst banning feminists, and people like Peter Tatchel and that mermaids trustee openly arguing that not all child rape is child rape really does play into the hands of those who benefit from division of the left wing.

Just wondering about how all this is being handled now. The Associated Press reported that Musk closed down the department supposed to be dealing with the child sex abuse material. Quoting a tweet of Musk, I think. What is being put in it's place?

I don't know who AP are really. Or if they only reported part of the story.

apnews.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-inc-technology-business-a9b795e8050de12319b82b5dd7118cd7

Some have suggested that there is a right wing or hostile state conspiracy to accept and link MAPS with the LGBT alphabet soup

The right wing don't need to link MAPS with TQ+ it's intrinsic to it

AP News are considered both accurate & as having integrity - they’re owned by a co-op; they cover stories on the ground (reporting by other outlets is often taken from/relies on their work); & they have a strong Union presence.

What Musk disbanded was the “Trust & Safety Council” - according to the BBC coverage, it was formed in 2016, [and] contained about 100 independent groups such as Samaritans and the UK Safer Internet Centre (UKSIC). I imagine that even if the same volunteer (or staff member) from each organisation attended meetings etc every time they must have been fairly unwieldy purely by virtue of having so many attendees!

I have once encountered a teenager (or someone claiming to still be U18, at least) who had images of themselves on their Twitter that might be considered CSAM; but more importantly, they were offering to send nudes to the unsavoury creatures salivating over the freely available images. I’m not sure what happened to the report - it was at a point when they weren’t feeding back about outcomes. I’d found them while reporting some of the usual “death to TERFs!” (etc) [getting angry violent male people put on the naughty step/banned is quite therapeutic really] so you can imagine the state of their timeline 🫤

You’re still able to report those images & any of form of abuse (though how quickly things get handled varies - someone’s just been naughty-stepped for a tweet from 4 months ago, for example, that was reported at the time). The Council only worked in an advisory capacity, they never determined policy; & crucially, they were never the people actually tasked with going through reports. So it’s not that he’s binned off the team who deal with that at all.

TBH, Twitter would be a fairly poor choice of platform for disseminating CSAM for the simple reason there’s too high a chance of getting caught. Finding other paedophiles with whom to form networks, possibly (though how many of those profiles will be law enforcement officers hoping to get the low hanging fruit? [please complete obvious joke re plums at your leisure]) but they have their own fetid places in which to congregate online that make the swamp of Twitter seem like a clear sparkling spring-fed pool in a lush evergreen meadow.