WASHINGTON, DC (June 4, 2024) – The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) said that X’s (formerly Twitter) announcement that users must mark their “consensually-produced” pornographic content as “sensitive,” will fail to prevent image-based sexual abuse from continuing to flourish on the platform.
“X’s new ‘policy’ is a distinction without a difference. It has already allowed illegal nonconsensual content including child sexual abuse material, sex trafficking, and other sexually abusive content to flourish by simply allowing pornography on its platform. Users will not mark their content as ‘sensitive,’ nor does X have the willingness to monitor for nonconsensual content. ‘Requiring’ users to label the content as pornography is a lazy way for X to continue to avoid responsibility for perpetuating sexual abuse,” said Dawn Hawkins, CEO, National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
“By allowing users to ‘create, distribute, and consume material related to sexual themes’ means that there will inevitably be illegal, nonconsensual, sexually abusive content on X. In case of two young boys whose child sexual abuse material (child pornography) was posted on X without their knowledge or consent and that X refused to remove, X profited from their sexual abuse and even claimed immunity for hosting it.
“The company has claimed to have improved its child sexual abuse material detection system after a Stanford Internet Observatory report exposed how dozens of hashed images of CSAM on X failed to be identified, removed, and prevented from being uploaded. However, X has yet to confirm whether they are still using PhotoDNA or another type of CSAM detection technology.
“Inevitably, X and all tech platforms that allow pornography must enact meaningful age and consent verification of everyone depicted in images or videos, otherwise image-based sexual abuse and child sexual abuse will continue to run rampant,” Hawkins said.
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. https://endsexualexploitation.org/
