Twitter didn’t block child sex abuse hashtags until journalists pointed them out
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )
Elon Musk said in November that Twitter's top priority is eliminating content that sexually exploits children. But Twitter apparently didn't take action against a series of hashtags and keywords used to promote the sale of child sex abuse material (CSAM) until after NBC News identified the problem in a report published Friday.
Twitter blocked searches for the hashtags and keywords on Saturday, NBC News wrote yesterday.
"NBC News found that a series of hashtags on the platform related to the file-sharing service Mega served as rallying points for users seeking to trade or sell CSAM. NBC News observed the hashtags over a period of several weeks, and counted dozens of users who collectively published hundreds of tweets daily," the report said. "The accounts used thinly veiled keywords and terms related to CSAM to promote the content they said was stored on Mega, which they said was available for purchase or trade."