Elon Musk on solving Twitter’s child sexual abuse material problem
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I was invited to co-host a Twitter Space and participate in group interview of Elon Musk and Ella Irwin, the new leader of Twitter’s Trust and Safety team.
Also participaing in the panel were Eliza Bleu; a survivor of human trafficking turned advocate, Tara Bull (@TaraBull808); who has hosted Spaces with Elon and provided coverage of the Twitter Files, Amanda Jean; who was supporting Eliza, and Andrea Stroppa, a former contributor to the World Economic Forum, and cyber security researcher focusing on digital communication, and social media.
I was invited because, as a journalist, I had been covering this extensively for Teslarati. Teslarati isn’t the right forum for this article which is why I’m writing it here.
About This Article
Before I dive into the interview, the report, and what Elon and Ella said, I want to share some background for those who may not even be aware of what Elon is doing to protect children on Twitter.
This article will be a long read because I am including several direct quotes from Eliza, Ella, Elon, Andrea, and Tara.
I feel they provide important context and hope this article will be a great resource for future researchers and those who are willing to fight hard against misinformation.
Also, please note that CSAM, CSE are acrynoms for child sexual abuse material and child sexual exploitation.
Background for context
In 2020, I met Eliza Bleu at a Tesla event in Atlanta, where we raised over $10,000 to fight human trafficking. Eliza is a survivor of human trafficking turned advocate. It’s her voice and hard work that led to last night’s group interview with Elon and Twitter’s radical improvements.
Fast forward two years and a good friendship later, Eliza told me that she was worried about Elon Musk buying Twitter. She then informed me of the John Doe 1 and 2 lawsuit and pointed out that if Elon Musk bought Twitter, he would inherit the mess of child sexual exploitation on the app.
John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 are two male minors who begged Twitter to remove videos of their sexual exploitation. Twitter refused to…