By Mallory Mattingly
Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) proliferates on X, and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation urges the platform to take action against it.
NBC News reported that after Elon Musk took over X (then Twitter) in 2022, CSAM “appears to be escalating, as anonymous, seemingly automated X accounts flood hashtags with hundreds of posts per hour advertising the sale of the illegal material.”
Thorn, a nonprofit organization on “a mission to create a world where every child can simply be a kid” by combatting child sexual abuse, broke ties with X shortly after Musk took over, revealing that X refused to pay for its work.
“We recently terminated our contract with X due to nonpayment,” Cassie Coccaro, head of communications at Thorn, told to NBC News. “And that was after months and months of outreach, flexibility, trying to make it work. And ultimately, we had to stop the contract.”
Since Thorn’s exit, CSAM has increased dramatically on the platform.
According to NBC, “A review of many hashtags with terms known to be associated with CSAM shows that the problem is, if anything, worse than when Musk initially took over. What was previously a trickle of posts of fewer than a dozen per hour is now a torrent propelled by accounts that appear to be automated — some posting several times a minute.”
After NBC came out with the news report, a spokesperson for X posted the company’s protocol for removing child abuse material on their safety account.
“At X, we have zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation in any form. Until recently, we leveraged partnerships that helped us along the way. We are proud to provide an important update on our continuous work detecting Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) content, announcing today that we have launched additional CSAM hash matching efforts,” the post began.
“This system allows X to hash and match media content quickly and securely, keeping the platform safer without sacrificing user privacy,” the post continued. “This is enabled by the incredible work of our safety engineering team, who have built state of the art systems to further strengthen our enforcement capabilities.”
When CSAM is reported on X, “we act swiftly to suspend the account and report the content to @NCMEC, which works with law enforcement globally to pursue justice and protect children.”
At X, we have zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation in any form. Until recently, we leveraged partnerships that helped us along the way. We are proud to provide an important update on our continuous work detecting Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) content, announcing…
Related: New Campaign Targets Big Tech Allowing Spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material
— Safety (@Safety) June 18, 2025
Haley McNamara, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Programs, National Center on Sexual Exploitation, urges X to continue take action against this material.
“It is beyond disturbing that child sexual abuse material is flooding X, but even more egregious is that X is not doing enough to confront it,” she said in a press release. “NBC News reveals that not only is CSAM proliferating from certain accounts, but that hashtags ‘identified in 2023…as hosting child exploitation advertisements are still being used for the same purpose today.’ X must be held to account for perpetuating child sexual abuse and seemingly turning a blind eye to this devastating abuse.”
“We’ve pointed to the fact that X allows pornography on its platform as one primary reason CSAM has flourished there. And X’s policy requiring that users mark their ‘consensually-produced’ pornographic content as ‘sensitive’ fails to prevent image-based sexual abuse from thriving,” McNamara continued. “It’s hard to believe that X has any interest or ability to confront CSAM on its platform, especially since it is starting to roll out encrypted direct messaging similar to WhatsApp, which has become a haven of CSAM and sextortion. X has already failed to control the abuse happening on its public platform, and no doubt will fail to get a handle on abuse happening on an encrypted site.”
X should heed NCOSE’s urgent warning and take action against CSAM on the platform.
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