Did you catch the cataclysmic Federal Lawsuit filed against Twitter around on January 20^th? In an explosive lawsuit, “John Doe” alleges being victimized by not only a child trafficker but Twitter. Subsequently Twitter refused to remove the videos created when he was trafficked, and violates its own policy.

Mainstream media was too busy paying homage to the inauguration of the 46^th President that week to notice.

In January 2020, a sixteen-year-old Florida teenager–“John Doe” in the lawsuit–discovered videos taken of him three years prior when he was victimized and trafficked that were being widely distributed on Twitter,

“which subjected him to ‘teasing, harassment, vicious bullying’ and led him to become ‘suicidal,’ court records show.”

Mom steps in, thank goodness! Parents quickly reached out to Twitter to get the content deleted off Twitter as soon as possible because Twitter has a strict policy about such content.

Twitter representatives requested proof of identification of the teen then sat on that information for a week before responding. A week that allowed this illegal content to be propagated across Twitter.

How many moms out there could sleep that whole week knowing the victimizing of your kid is continuing to be viewed by sickos on Twitter?

Did we mention the child traffickers blackmailed the kid into making more videos when he was thirteen?

“A trafficker posing as a 16-year-old female classmate…allegedly exchanged nude photos before the conversation turned to blackmail: If the teen didn’t share more sexually graphic photos and videos, the explicit material he’d already sent would be shared with his ‘parents, coach, pastor’ and others, the suit states.”

Of course Twitter responded immediately by deleting this illegal content, right? Certainly they deleted the account of the original content and notify local authorities, right?

Nope.

“’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,’ the response reads, according to the lawsuit.”

We might give Jack Dorsey a small pass on this misstep, maybe. Afterall that week, he was busy cogitating what to do about then President Trump’s Twitter account. Jack Dorsey was vacationing in French Polynesia watching Mark Zuckerberg, who was vacationing in Hawaii, make the speedy decision the night of January 6^th, 2020 to suspend President Trump’s account for twenty-four hours—possibly until the end of his term. Not to be outdone, before the end of business on January 8th, Jack Dorsey made the decision to permanently ban President Trump’s Twitter account.

“Dorsey had come to believe that the appropriate course of action was to ban Trump’s personal account permanently on the grounds that his ability to post presented a risk to public safety.”

Twitter has no problem shutting down accounts and content due to “public safety”. That is not the problem. The problem is monetized content.

The lawsuit also alleges that Twitter selectively removes or prevents certain content on its platform based on information and belief and that his videos were monetized through distribution.

Twitter makes money when monetized content makes money. Child trafficking is big business. President Trump’s account does not make money. Someone must pay for these French Polynesian trips after all. Forget President Trump’s policies–Twitter violates its own policy by allowing this content to continue–and profits nicely.

What in the world does it take to remove illegal content from Twitter? Great question.

“’Only after this take-down demand from a federal agent did Twitter suspend the user accounts that were distributing the CSAM and report the CSAM to the National Center on Missing and Exploited Children,’ states the suit, filed by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and two law firms.”

Tragically it was not removed in time to prevent 167,000 views and 2,223 retweets from propagating across the internet. Hence the Federal lawsuit against Twitter. Bravo!

John Doe’s attorney told the DailyWire:

“’As John Doe’s situation makes clear, Twitter is not committed to removing child sex abuse material from its platform. Even worse, Twitter contributes to and profits from the sexual exploitation of countless individuals because of its harmful practices and platform design,’ said Peter Gentala, senior legal counsel for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law Center. ‘Despite its public expressions to the contrary, Twitter is swarming with uploaded child pornography and Twitter management does little or nothing to prevent it.’”

Swarming? This is not an isolated incident? Apparently Twitter violates its own policy consistently and does nothing at all to stop it.

Fellow sex trafficking survivor, Eliza Bleu, jumped on platforms that will listen to her advocacy and calling out Jack Dorsey. Sadly, at one point, she respected Jack Dorsey.

“’I thought that Twitter cared about vulnerable populations,’ she said. ‘I thought that Twitter cared about survivors. I changed my mind after hearing the details of John Doe’s story. I haven’t stopped fighting since.’”

Hoping for an answer to Eliza Bleu’s question:

“’I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask you for a few months,’ Bleu wrote to Dorsey. ‘How do you sleep at night knowing a portion of your profits are coming from child abuse on Twitter? And you stay silent,’ she accused.”

The secret sauce in figuring out Twitter’s random enforcement of their zero tolerance policies has been cracked. Money. Twitter profits from illegal child trafficking. Not sure we can rely on President Joe Biden to take a hard stance on this issue anytime soon.

Feature image credits: Peter Kirkeskov Rasmussen, via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 license; image cropped.