According to recently-released internal communications, the social media giant Twitter used every technique possible to censor news articles about Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell,” including measures allegedly used only on the most serious problems like child porn — which Twitter has repeatedly failed to remove from the platform.
In the wake of Elon Musk releasing internal discussions at Twitter about censoring the Biden laptop story, one of the key points revealed was that Twitter executives used measures to censor the laptop story. Matt Taibbi, who posted the discussions online, indicates that these measures are only used in “extreme” situations, and gives the example of Twitter suppressing and removing child pornography from the platform.
He explains the extreme measures used to shut down access to the story, including removing links from posts, adding warnings that it may be “unsafe,” and even blocking the story from being shared via direct message.
Despite this claim, Twitter was more effective at suppressing the laptop story than removing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). CSAM is so widespread on the platform that the company was forced to derail its OnlyFans competitor feature.
In April 2022, an internal team at Twitter concluded, “Twitter cannot accurately detect child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity at scale.” The company also did not have the tools to verify that creators and consumers of adult content were of legal age.
Since his takeover, Musk has claimed that removing child porn on the platform is his number one priority.