Twitter can ban the former President of the United States from it’s platform, but it is okay with having child pornography on it’s platform?
According to the New York Post, Twitter refused to take down a widely shared pornographic image of a teenage sex trafficking victim, after an investigation the company “didn’t find a violation” of the company’s “policies”.
A federal lawsuit was filed on Wednesday by the victim and his mother in the Northern District of California, the lawsuit alleges Twitter made money from the clip, which the clip showed a 13-year-old engaging in sex acts and are a form a child sexual abuse from that content.
The teen who is now 17 lives in Florida, and is only identified by the authorities as John Doe and was between 13 and 14 old when sex traffickers, posing as a 16 year-old female classmate started chatting with him on Snapchat.
During that conversation it is alleged in the lawsuit that Doe and the sex traffickers began sharing nude photos with each other before the conversation turned into blackmail: If he didn’t send more nude photos of himself along with videos, the explicit material would be shared online and be shown to his parents, coach, pastor and many others, the suit states.
Eventually, Doe caved into these demands performing several sexual acts which some included with children in the videos, later Doe blocked the traffickers and they left him alone for awhile, that is until a recent video in 2019 resurfaced on Twitter under two accounts that were known for sharing child sexual abuse content, the lawsuit states.
Doe’s mother filed two complaints at Twitter for the graphic material still being shown on their platform, when Twitter responded back on Jan. 28, Twitter replied that they wouldn’t be taking down the material, which had already racked up over 167,000 views and 2,223 retweets.
“Thanks for reaching out. We’ve reviewed the content, and didn’t find a violation of our policies, so no action will be taken at this time.”
To which Doe replied “What do you mean you don’t see a problem? 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.”
According to the lawsuit, Doe’s mother was contacted by an agent from the Department of Homeland Security through a mutual contact who successfully had the videos removed on Jan. 30.
Discussion about this post