Blockbuster news broke regarding the child porn lawsuit against Twitter.
If you’re unaware, the ongoing lawsuit involves images and videos of an underage sex trafficking victim that Twitter refused to remove from their platform.
Twitter found no violation of its company’s policies and a graphic video received hundreds of thousands of views.
This New York Post article provides background info:
Twitter refused to take down widely shared pornographic images and videos of a teenage sex trafficking victim because an investigation “didn’t find a violation” of the company’s “policies,” a scathing lawsuit alleges.
The federal suit, filed Wednesday by the victim and his mother in the Northern District of California, alleges Twitter made money off the clips, which showed a 13-year-old engaged in sex acts and are a form of child sexual abuse material, or child porn, the suit states.
The teen — who is now 17 and lives in Florida — is identified only as John Doe and was between 13 and 14 years old when sex traffickers, posing as a 16-year-old female classmate, started chatting with him on Snapchat, the suit alleges.
Doe and the traffickers allegedly exchanged nude photos before the conversation turned to blackmail: If the teen didn’t share more sexually graphic photos and videos, the explicit material he’d already sent would be shared with his “parents, coach, pastor” and others, the suit states.
Doe, acting under duress, initially complied and sent videos of himself performing sex acts and was also told to include another child in his videos, which he did, the suit claims.
Eventually, Doe blocked the traffickers and they stopped harassing him, but at some point in 2019, the videos surfaced on Twitter under two accounts that were known to share child sexual abuse material, court papers allege.
Over the next month, the videos would be reported to Twitter at least three times — first on Dec. 25, 2019 — but the tech giant failed to do anything about it until a federal law enforcement officer got involved, the suit states.
Doe became aware of the tweets in January 2020 because they’d been viewed widely by his classmates, which subjected him to “teasing, harassment, vicious bullying” and led him to become “suicidal,” court records show.
While Doe’s parents contacted the school and made police reports, he filed a complaint with Twitter, saying there were two tweets depicting child pornography of himself and they needed to be removed because they were illegal, harmful and were in violation of the site’s policies.
Twitter was hoping to weasel out of legal trouble through Section 230.
However, the ruling spells horrific news for the tech giant.
The ruling stated that the Court finds, “an ongoing pattern of conduct amounting to a tacit agreement with the perpetrators…”
"The Court finds… an ongoing pattern of conduct amounting to a tacit agreement with the perpetrators…"
Damning for Twitter. pic.twitter.com/GnrrtSZdQg
— Eliza (@elizableu) August 19, 2021
Breaking: A court has decided that the Twitter Child Porn Sex Trafficking case will move forward.
— Eliza (@elizableu) August 19, 2021
Twitter tacitly agreeing to help sex traffickers? Whoa. https://t.co/5AIFrtolGv
— Marc J. Randazza 🇺🇸 🇮🇹 🇧🇷 (@marcorandazza) August 19, 2021
Yikes @Twitter care to comment? https://t.co/TDIXkntx2Z
— Eliza (@elizableu) August 19, 2021
My statement about the Twitter case:
Minor survivors are our most vulnerable and often overlooked. Twitter knowingly profits off of child sexual exploitation and makes the crime difficult to report and remove for minor victims and survivors.
— Eliza (@elizableu) August 19, 2021
I applaud the bravery of John Doe 1 & John Doe 2 for not only standing up for themselves, but for taking a stand for all minor victims of Twitter from around the globe. Their willingness to relive one of the darkest periods in their life in order to create change is truly heroic.
— Eliza (@elizableu) August 19, 2021
https://t.co/1KaaCO3Grf pic.twitter.com/AP9uuJDXSV
— Eliza (@elizableu) August 19, 2021
Twitter Child Porn Lawsuit: Judge Finds ‘Ongoing Pattern of Conduct Amounting to a Tacit Agreement with the Perpetrators’@JDRucker https://t.co/fpYaxSBHqx
— Freedom First Network (@freedomfirstnet) August 19, 2021
Twitter Child Porn Lawsuit: Judge Finds 'Ongoing Pattern of Conduct Amounting to a Tacit Agreement with the Perpetrators' https://t.co/WIIW8LtkjQ
— cfineart (@cfineart) August 19, 2021
I’m reading this ruling and checked with my own free speech lawyer @marcorandazza to make sure I get the a story right.
It’s a devastating ruling against Twitter. https://t.co/FKQFl037Gi
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) August 19, 2021
Filmmaker Mike Cernovich provided this update:
Big update in lawsuit a Doe victim brought against Twitter https://t.co/X0ZQ0MTRVG
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) August 19, 2021
While demanding more tools to allow them to censor conservatives, corporate media blue checks won’t report on a blockbuster court victory against Twitter, which was handed down today. pic.twitter.com/AB8X7e1qiI
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) August 19, 2021
Should Twitter spend more time and money finding new ways to censor conservatives, or should they focus on ensuring that 0 child exploitation content remains on site?
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) August 19, 2021
"This lawsuit seeks to shine a light on how Twitter has enabled and profited from child sexual abuse material on its platform, choosing profits over people, money over the safety of children…." – National Center on Sexual Exploitation lawsuit against Twitter. pic.twitter.com/q6MC7TKINF
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) January 21, 2021
What makes this really bad:
– Child victim reported.
– Twitter asked him to verify his identification.
– Child victim did so.
– Twitter reviewed the material, and chose to leave it on platform.
– It took the Department of Homeland Security intervening for Twitter to act. https://t.co/ej0OKGRQvg pic.twitter.com/NiJDbdT5kY
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) January 21, 2021
Freedom First Network reported:
A federal judge has ruled a lawsuit against Twitter for allowing sexually exploitative videos of children on their platform can move forward. The lawsuit, filed in January, claims Twitter refused to take down a video of a 13-year-old boy and another minor despite repeated attempts by the mother to have it removed.
The video accumulated thousands of Retweets and hundreds of thousands of views before the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intervened.
Reports are coming in on Twitter from filmmaker Mike Cernovich and human trafficking survivor advocate Eliza Bleu:
Twitter had been trying to have the lawsuit tossed through their Section 230 protections. According to the ruling, “the Court finds that Plaintiffs have stated a claim for civil liability under the TVPRA … the claim falls within the exemption to Section 230…”
The lawsuit alleges one or multiple traffickers tricked the boy into providing explicit images to a Snapchat account he was led to believe belonged to a 16-year-old girl. After obtaining the explicit content, the traffickers allegedly blackmailed the boy into providing the video that ultimately spread on Twitter.
“Plaintiff John Doe was solicited and recruited for sex trafficking as a minor,” reads the lawsuit brought in part by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE). “After John Doe escaped from the manipulation, child sexual abuse material depicting John Doe was disseminated on Twitter. When Twitter was first alerted to this fact and John Doe’s age, Twitter refused to remove the illegal material and instead continued to promote and profit from the sexual abuse of this child.”
Let’s review.
Twitter still has President Trump banned from its platform.
They permit the Taliban to use the platform.
And they allow and profit off pornographic images and videos of children.
Could the hammer finally be coming down on Jack Dorsey?
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