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Minor Sues Twitter For Allegedly Refusing To Remove Child Porn

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Twitter was sued for allegedly not removing child pornography from its website, court documents filed Wednesday show.

When the plaintiff, who is a minor referred to only as John Doe, was 13 – 14 years old, he was manipulated into sending sexually explicit images to human traffickers who pretended to be a 16-year-old girl who went to his school, according to the lawsuit. The traffickers then began blackmailing Doe into sending more explicit photos and videos, telling him that if he did not send the material, they would show the photos he had already sent to his parents, coach, pastors, and others in the community.

In 2019, the videos that John Doe had sent were posted on Twitter, according to the complaint. One person reported an account that had posted the videos to Twitter in December of 2019, but Twitter allegedly did not take any action against the account. (RELATED: Twitter Says It Purged Over 70,000 Accounts)

In January of 2019, Doe discovered that the videos he had sent were posted on Twitter and that his peers had seen them. “Due to the circulation of these videos, he faced teasing, harassment, vicious bullying, and became suicidal,” the lawsuit said.

John Doe made a complaint about the videos to Twitter on Jan. 21, 2020, according to the complaint. Twitter responded and said that they needed him to confirm that he was the person in the videos and asked for a copy of Doe’s ID, which he sent. John Doe’s mother, referred to as Jane Doe, filed two complaints about the explicit material the next day and filed a police report.

“Thanks for reaching out. We’ve reviewed the content, and didn’t find a violation of our policies, so no action will be taken at this time,” Twitter allegedly said in a Jan. 28 email to Jane Doe. (RELATED: Mastercard Terminates Use Of Pornhub After Discovering ‘Illegal Material’ On The Platform)

The lawsuit alleges that Twitter ignored a follow-up email from John Doe and only removed the content when an agent from the Department of Homeland Security demanded that the material be taken down. The content was not taken down until Jan. 30, after it had been retweeted over 2,000 times and had over 167,000 views.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, the Haba Law Firm and the Matiasic Firm filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

“As John Doe’s situation makes clear, Twitter is not committed to removing child sex abuse material from its platform,” Peter Gentala, senior legal counsel for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law Center, said in a statement. “Even worse, Twitter contributes to and profits from the sexual exploitation of countless individuals because of its harmful practices and platform design.”

“Despite its public expressions to the contrary, Twitter is swarming with uploaded child pornography and Twitter management does little or nothing to prevent it.”