Twitter’s seemingly worst year continues, with the company this week being forced to inform some advertisers that their ads had been displayed in the app alongside Tweets soliciting child pornography and other abusive material.

As Reuters reports:

“Brands ranging from Walt Disney, NBCUniversal, and Coca-Cola, to a children’s hospital, were among some 30 advertisers that have appeared on the profile pages of Twitter accounts that peddle links to the exploitative material.”

Say What Now?!

The discovery was made by cybersecurity group GhostData, which worked with Reuters to uncover the ad placement concerns, dealing another huge blow to the app’s ongoing business prospects. Already in a messy state due to the whole Elon Musk deal, Twitter’s now also facing an advertiser exodus, with big brands including Dyson, Mazda, and Ecolab suspending their Twitter campaigns in response.

This is the least concerning element in the discovery. GhostData also identified more than 500 accounts that openly shared or requested child sexual abuse material over a 20-day period. GhostData also said that Twitter failed to remove more than 70% of the accounts during the time of the study. These findings raise further questions about Twitter’s inability, or willingness, to address potentially harmful material. The Verge even reported another issue that alludes to this late last month. The findings stemmed from an investigation into Twitter’s proposed plan to give adult content creators the ability to start selling OnlyFans-style paid subscriptions in the app – like, what?! Long story short, Twitter’s own investigation of its OnlyFans-esque proposal was scrapped because it could risk facilitating the risk of monetizing such – not because it was potentially abusive material, but because it lacked any means of countering the possible damage such a decision could bring.

With these in mind, these new findings aren’t that surprising – but again, the advertiser backlash is likely to be significant, which might just force Twitter to launch a new crackdown. In its defense, Twitter said that it’s investing more resources dedicated to child safety, including ‘hiring for new positions to write policy and implement solutions’. This is great and all, but also seemingly contrasted by these reports. There’s even a notion that Twitter openly supports the promotion of adult content, albeit inadvertently. Want an example? Just list ‘Facebook’ as one of your topical follows and see what kind of accounts pop up. Sure, these might not be straight porn, but no doubt they can escalate to such pretty darn quick; all it would take is a single tap through.

The Wrap

If Twitter branded itself as a distributor of adult content and host for private, subscriber-based explicit content, then these types of things should fly, minus the whole child abuse and sexual exploitation thing – in no way or place will that ever be okay. But that’s just the problem here – Twitter isn’t the place for these kinds of content; it’s meant to be the ‘Public Square’ for news, not the digital representation of a strip club placed smack in the middle of a small town of curious virgins.

There are plenty of other findings suggesting that Twitter mainly refuses to take action seeing as how it’s ‘less restrictive’ nature helps it gain more exposure and appeal compared to the likes of Facebook and Instagram. Meanwhile, the ongoing back and forth with Elon Musk just further complicates things, suggesting that making potentially deal-breaking changes to their structure might hurt Twitter’s chances of winning its court trial. Bottom line? Twitter’s certainly in a pickle.

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Sources 

https://bit.ly/3LUmWxg