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Elon Musk said in november Twitter’s top priority is to eliminate content that sexually exploits children. But until NBC News identified the issue in a report published Friday, Twitter apparently responded to a series of hashtags and keywords used to promote the sale of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). I took no action.
Twitter blocked hashtag and keyword searches on Saturday, NBC News wrote yesterday.
“NBC News has discovered that a series of hashtags on its platform related to file-sharing service Mega act as a rallying point for users seeking to trade or sell CSAM. We looked at the tags and counted dozens of users, who collectively publish hundreds of tweets every day,” the report said. “The account used thinly veiled keywords and terms related to CSAM to promote content that was stored on Mega and claimed to be available for purchase or trade.”
Some accounts have been using the CSAM hashtag for months, and “dozens of users tried to tag Musk with the hashtag and warn him of the problem,” NBC News wrote. ing.
“Nearly every tweet viewed by NBC News that promoted or promoted CSAM used hashtags that mentioned Mega or another similar service, allowing users to search and find their tweets. The hashtag remains searchable on the platform despite being active for months,” said a report on Friday.
After Musk bought the company, Twitter laid off half of its employees, and after Musk issued an ultimatum, employees had to commit to “working long hours at high intensity” to keep their jobs. After saying no, we lost even more people. The cutbacks reportedly left the team responsible for reviewing and escalating his CSAM report with an “overwhelmed minimal crew.”
Twitter VP discusses banning hashtags
After Friday’s report, Ella Irwin, Twitter’s vice president of product trust and safety, told NBC News that the department will review content over the weekend. “The link you shared relates to a widely used file-sharing service for a variety of purposes, making it much more difficult to find the specific illegal content posted using the hashtag in question. You know what’s going on,” she wrote Irwin in an email. .
On Saturday, Irwin sent a follow-up email to NBC News reporting that Twitter has banned the hashtag. “Given that we have banned other hashtags commonly used for human trafficking, we were already considering doing this in the coming weeks. [CSAM] Although we already have the materials, we have decided to accelerate this action due to these conditions,” she wrote.
NBC News paraphrased Irwin, saying, “Over the past six weeks, Twitter has been analyzing thousands of hashtags for projects due to be completed in the coming weeks. It said it doesn’t want to ban hashtags that have uses, but in this case, the company has decided to act.”
Irwin added, “I’m sure there’s still work to be done in this area, and we’re improving rapidly, and I’m sure we’re detecting far more than Twitter has detected in a long time. but we’re doing a lot to keep improving…”
Despite the significant staff cuts, Irwin told NBC News that Twitter “has about 25% more people on this issue/problem area now than it did at its peak last January.” said.
Mega executive chairman Steven Hall told NBC News last week, “If any public link is reported to contain CSAM, we will immediately disable the link, permanently close the user’s account, and send the New Zealand We will provide details to the authorities and relevant international bodies.” An NBC News email yesterday said, “Hall reacted to the news that mega-related terms were blocked on Twitter, saying it was a ‘pretty disappointing response to the complex situation.’ A candid response,” he wrote.
