WASHINGTON, DC (November 29, 2022) – The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) said that if Elon Musk is serious about removing child exploitation, he needs to quash the idea of creating an OnlyFans competitor and to implement a robust system to stop child predators on Twitter.
“Elon Musk recently indicated that his top priority is to remove child sexual abuse material from Twitter. However, to reach this adequate goal, he needs to invest serious resources to adequately confront this grave problem and halt current plans for features like Paywalled Video that may only exacerbate the issue. Reports from earlier this month noted that Musk is eager to ‘fast track’ an OnlyFans-like feature that would allow content creators to charge for content – with Twitter getting a cut. Many experts, including Twitter’s own analysts, warn that this type of feature would be high-risk and most likely used to monetize sexually explicit content – which would likely include child sex abuse material (CSAM). This is a major problem given Twitter’s current inability to sufficiently detect and remove CSAM,” said Lina Nealon, director of corporate and strategic initiatives for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
“Given that Twitter has historically faced major challenges in preventing illegal, abusive content, it should not move towards an OnlyFans-style feature that will likely provide yet another avenue for abuse to thrive on Twitter. OnlyFans enables sex buyers and pimps to maximize buying and selling people behind the security of a paywall. Survivors, whistleblowers, police, and investigative journalists have uncovered child sexual abuse material, sex trafficking, rape videos, and a host of other crimes on OnlyFans.
“Pedophiles and predators go to Twitter to trade in criminal content such as child sexual abuse and non-consensually shared/recorded pornography. The platform is rampant with accounts and posts functioning as advertisements for commercial sex—including prostitution.
“To date, Twitter has also failed to adequately respond to its victims, claiming it cannot be held accountable for disseminating illegal material. Twitter even flatly refused to remove verified child sex abuse material from its site when asked by victims.
“Elon Musk cannot confront child sexual abuse material on Twitter while creating another means that would only fuel sexual abuse and exploitation on the platform,” Nealon said.
Twitter and OnlyFans were named to NCOSE’s 2022 Dirty Dozen List of mainstream contributors to sexual exploitation.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law Center, The Haba Law Firm, and The Matiasic Firm, represent two survivors of child sexual abuse who were trafficked and exploited on Twitter in a lawsuit against the company.
About National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)
Founded in 1962, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) is the leading national non-partisan organization exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation such as child sexual abuse, prostitution, sex trafficking and the public health harms of pornography.
