A cybersecurity data analyst named Andrea Stroppa decided to personally fund an investigation into child sexual abuse-related material (CSAM) being posted on Twitter before Elon Musk assumed leadership of the company.
The expert said in the report that several accounts were detected posting CSAM content and that many of them had been active for several years.
Stroppa revealed that 95% of the accounts posting such content were created before Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter and that some of them received as many as ten million views.
VII. We found several accounts that shared CSAM, including videos of children and teens involved in sexual activities. >95% of these accounts were created before Elon Musk bought Twitter. Some of these accounts have been active for years (even since 2017).
— Andrea Stroppa 🐺 Claudius Nero's Legion 🐺 (@andst7) December 10, 2022
The analyst noted that one of the problems was that the "old Twitter" did not suspend accounts that posted CSAM but only deleted tweets.
"The more we work on child sexual abuse material on Twitter, the more we find the HELL left by the old Twitter management. What I'm going to tell you now is INSANE," Stroppa said.
Children's safety a priority for Musk
After the analyst shared these figures, he explained that the new administration is already working hard to solve this problem.
Musk not only disbanded Twitter's Trust and Safety Council, which advised the social network on censorship guidelines, but has also taken several actions that have reduced the impact "of malicious accounts," as Stroppa explained.
"Twitter focused on Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking users in the past days. Reduced over 90% the impact of these malicious accounts" he reported.
The analyst informed that they are also working on a form so that CSAM complaints can be dealt with more easily and effectively, as well as a way of detecting users who try to evade account suspension.
V.
c. Continuous updating and monitoring of suspected hashtags and KWs.
d. Strengthening of cooperation with law enforcement.
e. Listening to users' ideas and feedback.
f. Operations against suspected networks that share CSAM.About f. read the following tweets
— Andrea Stroppa 🐺 Claudius Nero's Legion 🐺 (@andst7) December 10, 2022
Stroppa also mentioned that Elon Musk is directly suspending accounts that post child sexual abuse material.
Former Twitter CEO claims otherwise
Following the reports that have recently come out about the old leadership's mismanagement, Jack Dorsey, the former CEO, tried to deny that the few actions that Twitter would have taken would stop the problem of the proliferation of CSAM content.
However, Elon Musk even took the time to personally answer him that it was all true and even highlighted that after joining the social network, there was almost no one working on child safety. It was precisely due to this that he made it his "top priority right away."
