7th Nov 2022

Twitter is Full of Pedophiles and Child Pornography

UPDATE: Twitter: Billionaires Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey Clash Over Child Porn (TheStreet)

By Sheila Dang and Katie Paul, Reuters

Sept 28 (Reuters) - Some major advertisers including Dyson, Mazda, Forbes and PBS Kids have suspended their marketing campaigns or removed their ads from parts of Twitter because their promotions appeared alongside tweets soliciting child pornography, the companies told Reuters.

DIRECTV and Thoughtworks also told Reuters late on Wednesday they have paused their advertising on Twitter.

Exclusive: Brands blast Twitter for ads next to child pornography accounts 

Brands ranging from Walt Disney Co (DIS.N), NBCUniversal (CMCSA.O) and Coca-Cola Co (KO.N) to a children's hospital were among more than 30 advertisers that appeared on the profile pages of Twitter accounts peddling links to the exploitative material, according to a Reuters review of accounts identified in new research about child sex abuse online from cybersecurity group Ghost Data. 

Some of tweets include key words related to "rape" and "teens," and appeared alongside promoted tweets from corporate advertisers, the Reuters review found. In one example, a promoted tweet for shoe and accessories brand Cole Haan appeared next to a tweet in which a user said they were "trading teen/child" content.

"We're horrified," David Maddocks, brand president at Cole Haan, told Reuters after being notified that the company's ads appeared alongside such tweets. "Either Twitter is going to fix this, or we'll fix it by any means we can, which includes not buying Twitter ads."

Twitter's challenges in identifying child abuse content were first reported in an investigation by tech news site The Verge in late August. The emerging pushback from advertisers that are critical to Twitter's revenue stream is reported here by Reuters for the first time.

NOTE: This is a totally free article, no subscriptions or pay walls, no ads or pop ups, no donation buttons or anything to join or buy. No spam! I do not profit from any of this. I am not running for any political office, nor do I endorse any candidates or political parties.

Like all social media platforms, Twitter bans depictions of child sexual exploitation, which are illegal in most countries. But it permits adult content generally and is home to a thriving exchange of pornographic imagery, which comprises about 13% of all content on Twitter, according to an internal company document seen by Reuters.

Ghost Data identified the more than 500 accounts that openly shared or requested child sexual abuse material over a 20-day period this month. Twitter failed to remove more than 70% of the accounts during the study period, according to the group, which shared the findings exclusively with Reuters.

Andrea Stroppa, the founder of Ghost Data, said the study was an attempt to assess Twitter's ability to remove the material. He said he personally funded the research after receiving a tip about the topic. ALSO READ: Who Flew on Jeffrey Epstein's 'Lolita Express' Plane? Full List of People Named

Elon Musk Threatens Twitter Advertisers

By Luc Olinga, TheStreet

Since Musk became owner, many advertisers, starting with General Motors (GM) , Audi (VLKAF) , Pfizer (PFE) and General Mills (GIS) , have already suspended their commercials.

Some advertisers have expressed their fears that the platform will once again turn into a free-for-all "hellscape." About a dozen advertisers asked ad-buyer GroupM to suspend their ads on Twitter in the event that Donald Trump's account was reactivated, according to the Wall Street Journal.

And one of Musk solutions to stop the hemorrhage of advertisers is to use his influence by shaming them in the public square. The goal is to get his 114.3 million Twitter fans to boycott these brands. This is the threat he just made.

"A thermonuclear name & shame is exactly what will happen if this continues" the billionaire responded.

Saudi Financing In Musk's Twitter Deal

By Marita Vlachou, HuffPost

The Saudis and Qatar contributed financing to help Elon Musk complete his purchase of the social media company.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal agreed to roll over $1.9 billion worth of Twitter shares through his Kingdom Holding Company to Musk’s new private company, making him the second largest investor in Twitter. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, owns nearly 17% of Kingdom Holding, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, Qatar contributed $375 million for the financing of Musk’s Twitter purchase.

Earlier this month, a U.S. citizen was reportedly sentenced to 16 years in prison because of tweets he posted while in the U.S. that were criticizing the Saudi government, his family said, according to The Associated Press. Another woman, a Ph.D. student in the U.K. and mother of two children, also received a lengthy prison sentence for using Twitter to follow accounts and share posts critical of the kingdom.

The reason for the Saudi ownership is to monitor and get access to anyone who might be foolish enough to freely speak against them. Some people might be silly enough to even pay for "verification". This just makes it all the easier to convict them at their thought crimes trial. Free Speech on a centralized platform is a ridiculous concept. It is as ridiculous as a centralized digital currency. "Free Speech" will be ok as long as one is making noises against the acceptable minority groups. But don't try speaking out against the puppet masters. READ MORE: NSA whistleblower: The C.I.A. and Saudi Arabia's Brutal State Police

By Jeremiah Harding

Twitter has a serious problem with both pedophilia and child porn (or "Child Exploitative Sexual Material" - CSEM, for short).

You might not know this, but you're sharing a platform with at least a few thousand self admitted pedophiles, and possibly hundreds of thousands of accounts sharing CSEM. I certainly didn't until a couple months ago, when I was opposing the idea of integrating them into "acceptable" society, for fear of "prosecuting thought crime". When I made that clear, an account going by the name "Pedonymous1" tried to convince me otherwise, which honestly doesn't surprise me. Twitter's big, and it's gonna have some deviants. Some.

So I checked their profile, and was immediately struck by how much positive feedback they got, and their hundreds of followers, along with having been there since November of 2014. That means for five years, an active group of pedophiles had been gaining traction, trying to give it a happy, smiling face!

While looking through these profiles, analyzing their networks, etc, I found accounts with material nobody should have to see. ACTUAL child porn accounts. Everything from stolen pics of your kids to videos of kids stripping and having sex with each other and adults. Sometimes tens of thousands of followers an account! With many of those followers being the same sorts of accounts! Want to make it worse? Twitter allows people as young as THIRTEEN to use the platform, which means guess what - it's basically a huge talent show from which the worst kind of people can recruit "talent", and there's a group of people trying to make pedophilia socially acceptable, using cartoons much of the time to increase the appeal, and almost nobody knows about it!

People actually have to GOOGLE how to report CSEM and pedos on your platform, because your reporting feature DOESN'T MAKE IT CLEAR. We can quickly report someone for being mean, but not for being a pedo around kids?

On Twitter, pedophiles seeking to exchange child pornography and other child sex exploitation images are utilizing secret hashtags to signal their presence and interest to each other. The hashtags #megalinks and #megadump are littered with tweets from otherwise empty accounts offering or soliciting illegal material. The trade would happen on Snapchat, another completely innocuous platform.

Many of these accounts have gone unchecked and remain active–some even for years. As a social media platform that claims to protect its users, and even enjoys legal protections under US Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Twitter needs to provide answers for why it continues to allow accounts dedicated to child sexual predation to proliferate in its space.

Twitter Using Section 230 To Avoid Child Sex Trafficking Lawsuit

A new lawsuit alleges that Twitter is aiding and abetting child sex traffickers and pedophiles by allowing them to buy and sell children, as well as spread child pornography, on its platform. Twitter, in its own defense, says the immunity protections outlined in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) do not require the social media service to act on behalf of innocent children who are being exploited.

“The lawsuit, filed in January, is accusing the Silicon Valley company of knowingly benefiting financially from the dissemination of sexual abuse material when it failed to immediately act on multiple complaints and correspondences asking it to remove the illegal and hurtful content,” the Epoch Times summarizes.

According to reports, Twitter is not only supporting child sex trafficking and child pornography – it is also benefitting from it financially. Nearly every time an incident is reported, Twitter takes its sweet time responding, if it ever even responds at all.

Staff previously in charge of content moderation and the verification of political figures have been fired since the acquisition was finalized as Musk makes progress on his pledge to investors to cut 75% of the platform's workforce.

If you’re having any difficulty you can contact:

The nonprofit organization End Violence Against Women International began the national Start By Believing Campaign in 2011, to promote positive responses to sexual assault survivors who disclose. As the campaign’s name suggests, a statement of belief can have a huge impact on sexual assault survivors, and can influence their decision whether or not to disclose their sexual assault again. Start By Believing also provides more tips on what to say and what not to say when someone confides in you they’ve been sexually assaulted.

Do yourself a favor. Think for yourself. Be your own person. Question everything. Stand for principle. Champion individual liberty and self-ownership where you can. Develop a strong moral code. Be kind to others. Do no harm, unless that harm is warranted. Pretty obvious stuff...but people who hold to these things in their hearts seem to be disappearing from the earth at an accelerated rate. Stay safe, my friends. Thanks for being here.

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