Twitter Profited from Child Porn, Refused to Take it Down

[TheReal1980]

Summary

Twitter seemed to have child porn on their platform and did nothing about it even after they knew about it.

 

Quotes

Quote

 Twitter used child pornography to profit and refused to take it down until the Department of Homeland Security became involved, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday.

Quote

“What do you mean you don’t see a problem?” the teen replied. “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.”

Quote

Twitter took the content down, according to the lawsuit, only after the teen’s mother was able to make contact with an agent in the Department of Homeland Security, who contacted the company.

 

My thoughts

This is just one of many examples of Twitter showing discusting things on their platform and behaving in the same way.

Should we demand a ban for Twitter on the AppStore and Playstore or do we want Twitter to spread child porn, animal mutilation et.c?

 

Sources

https://nypost.com/2021/01/21/twitter-sued-for-allegedly-refusing-to-remove-child-porn/

https://www.mediaite.com/news/twitter-profited-from-child-porn-refused-to-take-it-down-until-feds-got-involved-lawsuit/

Edited January 22, 2021 by Blade of Grass
Fixed link linking issue

[dizmo]

wtf? Twitter is not at all what I thought it was.

I've used it maybe 3 times. To bitch at companies like Translink.

[Master Disaster]

Quote

....we didn't authorise these videos at all....

Err, at the age of 13 you don't have the legal authority to authorise a video of that nature in any capacity.

 

There shouldn't have been even the slightest bit of doubt from Twitter, as soon as the phrases "13 years old" and "sexual content" were combined Twitter should have pulled it instantly.

 

Disgusting.

[Guest]

It's hard to comment on this since it's just an allegation right now, but if true, it's pretty damning. How could they possibly find no reason to remove a video of minors engaged in sex acts? It'll be interesting to hear their response to this. 

 

I'd personally be fine if Twitter disappeared entirely forever. But that's just me. 

[GDRRiley]

ah yes 2 great sources /s. Until we know more and its not just they claim this. I've got nothing noteworthy to say

[TheReal1980]

9 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

ah yes 2 great sources /s. Until we know more and its not just they claim this. I've got nothing noteworthy to say

Ok, please show us what a "great source" is.

[PCGuy_5960]

10 minutes ago, Nacht said:

Twitter is worse then Facebook.

Facebook is a stupid conspiracy theory breeding ground and Twitter is just a retarded virtue signaling echo chamber. At least Facebook is pretty open about not really caring about what is on their platform, unlike Twitter who moderate their website but only when it's convenient.

[suicidalfranco]

And yet they never get the boot from Apple, Google, Amazon etc... Smh

[Tellos]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

Err, at the age of 13 you don't have the legal authority to authorise a video of that nature in any capacity.

 

There shouldn't have been even the slightest bit of doubt from Twitter, as soon as the phrases "13 years old" and "sexual content" were combined Twitter should have pulled it instantly.

 

Disgusting.

You would think this would be the logical response. But apparently for twitter...not so much? 

 

Me it'd go like this. child under age of adulthood, and sexual content...yeah gonna say thats a BIG BIG FAT bag of NOPE! *insta ban*

[Spotty]

2 hours ago, TheReal1980 said:

Twitter used child pornography to profit

Something I don't understand is how does Twitter make money (directly) from people watching a video on its platform? If it was Youtube then I would understand the ads playing before a video but Twitter doesn't do that (does it?)?

 

1 hour ago, GDRRiley said:

ah yes 2 great sources /s. Until we know more and its not just they claim this. I've got nothing noteworthy to say

I haven't fully read it and all the details but one of the articles links to a copy of the court filings. https://www.scribd.com/document/491614044/Doe-v-Twitter

 

From what I very quickly skimmed it appears that it was reported to Twitter multiple times, including with police reports concerning the child abuse material and also verifying his identity through drivers licence to confirm he was indeed the person in the video. Twitter took a week to respond to the report saying that there was no violation of their rules and didn't remove the content. The video remained on the platform for 10 days from the first time the plaintiff reported the content to Twitter (reported 20th Jan, removed 30th Jan 2020). The account that was posting the abuse material had been reported to Twitter before for posting child abuse material and Twitter didn't act. It was only after authorities intervened and gave notice to Twitter to remove it that Twitter did, but the person who was posting the content created a new account using the same name and continued posting child abuse material. Before the video was removed it had 167,000 views and over 2200 retweets (seriously, what the fuck?).

Edited January 22, 2021 by Spotty

[WereCatf]

I am left wondering what, exactly, happens in the background when a tweet is reported for content like this; is it forwarded to some low-wage, practically untrained employee who then may or may not even check the tweet out properly and just clicks on "yes" or "no"?

 

Low-wage employees don't have much incentive in putting in much effort and, as has been demonstrated many times in the past, just do the bare minimum to get through the day. Also I, at least, do not know how well Twitter trains their employees who sift through these complaints, so they may be completely out of their depth here and wanted to rather err on the side of not removing content they're not sure about than on the side of removing content.

[CarlBar]

15 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Something I don't understand is how does Twitter make money (directly) from people watching a video on its platform? If it was Youtube then I would understand the ads playing before a video but Twitter doesn't do that (does it?)?

 

I haven't fully read it and all the details but one of the articles links to a copy of the court filings. https://www.scribd.com/document/491614044/Doe-v-Twitter

 

From what I very quickly skimmed it appears that it was reported to Twitter multiple times, including with police reports concerning the child abuse material and also verifying his identity through drivers licence to confirm he was indeed the person in the video. Twitter took a week to respond to the report saying that there was no violation of their rules and didn't remove the content. The video remained on the platform for 10 days from the first time the plaintiff reported the content to Twitter (reported 20th Jan, removed 30th Jan). The account that was posting the abuse material had been reported to Twitter before for posting child abuse material and Twitter didn't act. It was only after authorities intervened and gave notice to Twitter to remove it that Twitter did, but the person who was posting the content created a new account using the same name and continued posting child abuse material. Before the video was removed it had 167,000 views and over 2200 retweets (seriously, what the fuck?).

 

First nice digging, that provides some more info. in this case, yeah twitter has an issue, personally i suspect it's an internal procedures issue that meant it wasn't properly elevated up the internal chain. As for the views and retweets. Whilst I've obviously never seen her naked i have a niece who at 13 looked like her mothers twin sister. If the people in the video looked adult enough people watching it might very well have been fooled.

[Master Disaster]

6 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

First nice digging, that provides some more info. in this case, yeah twitter has an issue, personally i suspect it's an internal procedures issue that meant it wasn't properly elevated up the internal chain. As for the views and retweets. Whilst I've obviously never seen her naked i have a niece who at 13 looked like her mothers twin sister. If the people in the video looked adult enough people watching it might very well have been fooled.

Yeah, very fair point. One of my friends has a daughter who is 14 and looks closer to 19, sometimes its not possible to tell age by looks alone.

 

Still doesn't excuse why Twitter ignored her when she straight up told them she was 13 at the time of recording, thats the sort of thing where it should be removed instantly and then investigated afterwards.

[NeuesTestament]

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

And yet they never get the boot from Apple, Google, Amazon etc... Smh

Funny how that works, isn't it. It's almost as if it is just about money

[Jet_ski]

Was the video uploaded to Twitter or was there a link to another website that hosted the video?

This is Twitter’s response to them:

Quote

“... If the content is hosted on a third-party website, you’ll need to contact that website’s support team to report it. Your safety is the most important thing, and if you believe you are in danger, we encourage you to contact your local authorities.” 

 

This is shocking to me. While I’ve never encountered that kind of content on Twitter, whenever I’ve reported an account, Twitter has responded within a couple of weeks often telling me they’ve suspended the accounts.

Also, MediaITE is not a reputable news organization. If you know anything about the people behind it, you’d know they have extreme views and biases. I would not quote them as a source.

 

My guess is that the lawsuit will be tossed out if it’s confirmed that the video wasn’t hosted on Twitter.

 

Why aren’t they suing the people who made and distributed the video instead of Twitter?! This whole story seems questionable.

[Master Disaster]

10 minutes ago, Jet_ski said:

Was the video uploaded to Twitter or was there a link to another website that hosted the video?

This is Twitter’s response to them:

 

This is shocking to me. While I’ve never encountered that kind of content on Twitter, whenever I’ve reported an account, Twitter has responded within a couple of weeks often telling me they’ve suspended the accounts.

Also, MediaITE is not a reputable news organization. If you know anything about the people behind it, you’d know they have extreme views and biases. I would not quote them as a source.

 

My guess is that the lawsuit will be tossed out if it’s confirmed that the video wasn’t hosted on Twitter.

Unlikely...

 

https://www.scribd.com/document/491614044/Doe-v-Twitter

 

Edit - when dealing with explicit material of minors it makes no difference who hosted the content, its a crime to, either do it yourself or facilitate in the recording, distribution and/or viewing.

 

It was viewable on Twitter, they were told about it by the victim and the police and they did nothing. At best they were facilitating the content being viewed, at worst the judge could decide they were actually distributing it.

[Spotty]

42 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

I am left wondering what, exactly, happens in the background when a tweet is reported for content like this; is it forwarded to some low-wage, practically untrained employee who then may or may not even check the tweet out properly and just clicks on "yes" or "no"?

Probably.

I can't remember if it was Facebook or Twitter (maybe both?) but there was some video about a year or two ago on the people working reviewing the reported content and how overworked they are and how much abuse material they need to view. Supposedly they have limits on how much time employees can spend reviewing that sort of content but there's so much of it they just end up spending most if not all of their time doing it, leading to a lot of psychological issues. I think it was like a VICE video or something?

 

It was The Verge.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona

https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/18681845/facebook-moderator-interviews-video-trauma-ptsd-cognizant-tampa

https://www.theverge.com/interface/2019/11/1/20941952/cognizant-content-moderation-restructuring-facebook-twitter-google

 

Edit: That actually isn't the video that I was thinking of, but still relevant.

 

41 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

If the people in the video looked adult enough people watching it might very well have been fooled.

I very much doubt it. The court documents also includes screenshots of some of the comments on the video, including some comments saying that the person in the video is a minor, with another person replying saying "They both are" (referring to the 2 people in the video I guess?).

 

 

25 minutes ago, Jet_ski said:

Was the video uploaded to Twitter or was there a link to another website that hosted the video?

I believe the video was uploaded directly to Twitter. It shows how many views it has which I believe Twitter only does for videos hosted on its platform (unless it also shows that for embedded videos hosted on a 3rd party site playing in the Twitter feed?)

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by Spotty

[Master Disaster]

Just now, DriftMan said:

don't go hard on Twitter... it's literally too big to be propperly moderated, just like Facebook

don't think that just taking it down from Twitter will make it disappear from the Internet, it can only be done via harsh laws so companies take content into quarantine to look forward it, it's not that easy: take a look at YouTube copyright claim policy, you can get any video removed or automatically stop being profitable if anyone claims it's yours, there are no perfect systems, if you are really really annoyed, the best bet is to leave twitter before it's too late

Sorry but no, IDGAF what platform it is, if someone contacts them in any way and tells them they are hosting videos of sexual activities involving a child the video in question should be pulled immediately and without question.

 

If its a false claim then it can be restored after an investigation has happened.

 

I worked at a school for 12 years, not only was I subject to a DEEP police records check (they pulled up stuff I did when I was 13 years old) before I could even take the job but I had to attend mandatory training once every year on how to deal with "intimate contact" and "inappropriate accidental viewing", there was a metric butt load of paperwork if you even so much as catch a glimpse of a child's intimate area (the only exception is toileting issues but even then it is recommended that female staff members deal with it with a second member stood outside as a witness and the entire incident is recorded in the child's file), failure to report it to your manager is grounds for instant dismissal.

 

I actually have a pretty funny story that I could tell but I won't since its wildly inappropriate but suffice it to say, I have personally had to phone the UKs social services and report an incident because it involved multiple children, after consulting my manager and the schools deputy head we were left with no other option.

 

You really don't fuck around with this kind of stuff, it can get you in VERY DEEP SHIT.

[cookiePerimetre]

13 minutes ago, DriftMan said:

don't go hard on Twitter... it's literally too big to be propperly moderated, just like Facebook

I see your point but that isn't how it should work.

If we just turn a blind eye to such terrible things happening because "the platform is too big" is unacceptable. 

[cookiePerimetre]

1 minute ago, DriftMan said:

Twitter.is.just.too.big

It's a world wide platform, we are too many people in the world and since you can create multiple accounts and post anything, it will require lots LOTS of moderators to make it a safe place, people tend to think it used to be like it was the first year, but it's not anymore

I wouldn't expect Twitter nor Facebook nor any platform with paid moderation to be efficient when there are billions of accounts, it's just too big and it can only change with international laws forbidding X content via monetary punishment, right now is

• Spend hundreds of millions worldwide paying moderators or
• Not spending that much and not having to pay compensations to "victims" (sexual content, copyright infringement, verbal abuse, etc)

It's just too big and the only solution as an individual is to leave the platform, and push for a worldwide change. Yeah you had to go through lots of stuff in YOUR COUNTRY, for YOUR COUNTRY, but Twitter is a virtual platform working in hundreds of countries worldwide. Again, it's.too.big, Facebook has it easier because there are less groups than users, but in Twitter every user can post for the world to easily see, the way it was intended

No. This is the equivalent of taking a big city and saying "Its too big too be protected from muggers, deal with it, or better yet leave." That is wrong. We need to push against these things and not allow them. Twitter getting a major community backfire is the only thing that would stop them from doing it again. That is why we can't just say "There aren't enough moderators" Twitter NEEDS to punish this and pull measures for it not to happen again!!!

[Master Disaster]

7 minutes ago, DriftMan said:

Twitter.is.just.too.big

It's a world wide platform, we are too many people in the world and since you can create multiple accounts and post anything, it will require lots LOTS of moderators to make it a safe place, people tend to think it used to be like it was the first year, but it's not anymore

I wouldn't expect Twitter nor Facebook nor any platform with paid moderation to be efficient when there are billions of accounts, it's just too big and it can only change with international laws forbidding X content via monetary punishment, right now is

• Spend hundreds of millions worldwide paying moderators or
• Not spending that much and not having to pay compensations to "victims" (sexual content, copyright infringement, verbal abuse, etc)

It's just too big and the only solution as an individual is to leave the platform, and push for a worldwide change. Yeah you had to go through lots of stuff in YOUR COUNTRY, for YOUR COUNTRY, but Twitter is a virtual platform working in hundreds of countries worldwide. Again, it's.too.big, Facebook has it easier because there are less groups than users, but in Twitter every user can post for the world to easily see, the way it was intended

Stop defending them, no its not to big.

 

Even the most basic moderators have the power to pull a tweet. Its really not that hard, the second a tweet is reported the moderator should instantly remove it, full stop. The girl in question was able to talk to a human being from Twitter, that should have been enough to get it taken down, its literally no more than 5 clicks for the moderator.

 

There is no excuse for any human to be told about this and not pull it instantly.

[Master Disaster]

14 minutes ago, DriftMan said:

Moderators have to follow rules as every other employee, they have guidelines, what I don't understand is why the guidelines didn't cover it

 

That could be the reason why it wasn't removed, will the guidelines cover that type of cases? Maybe, or maybe not, depends on the backlash of this incident, like almost all big platforms do

Allowing the distribution of this kind of material on your platform, be it knowingly or not, is a serious crime (I believe its actually a Felony in the USA).

 

I'm sorry but this goes beyond what policies and procedures Twitter have in place, by allowing that video to remain live on Twitter anybody who was told about it broke the law and Twitter as a platform might end up on the line for distribution.

 

If Twitter don't have policies in place to cover this already then they're going to get bent over by the judge and ass fucked with a 12 foot barge poll. If Twitter does have policies in place then it means they ignored them and again they're going to get bent over by the judge and ass fucked with a 12 foot barge poll.

 

I genuinely don't think you're grasping the severity of these allegations, one of the largest and highest profile social media platforms allowed a video of a 13 year old girl being raped (sex with a minor is always considered as rape since a minor cannot legally give consent) to remain live on their platform despite being told about it by both the victim and the police and then tried to hide behind their policies to defend themselves.

[suicidalfranco]

1 hour ago, DriftMan said:

don't go hard on Twitter... it's literally too big to be propperly moderated, just like Facebook

If only the same could be said for very alternative that pops up to compete against them. But no, industry wide ban for everyone else, made up excuses for the "too big"

 

[PCGuy_5960]

1 hour ago, DriftMan said:

don't go hard on Twitter... it's literally too big to be propperly moderated, just like Facebook

I'd say fair enough, but twitter has recently shown that they are perfectly capable of moderating their website. They can't see themselves as a moral authority (like they currently do) and take 0 action against this kind of stuff. And it's not like this was a single tweet that got no attention so it was hard for them to even know it existed:

2 hours ago, Spotty said:

Before the video was removed it had 167,000 views and over 2200 retweets

Not to mentioned that the individual in that video apparently talked to a twitter employee about this and even provided them with proof that they were underage. Like really, it's as if twitter was actively trying to keep the video up.

[Arika]

1 hour ago, DriftMan said:

That could be the reason why it wasn't removed, will the guidelines cover that type of cases?

Are you actually serious? it's child porn.