John Doe was around 13 years old when he was tricked, blackmailed and threatened by sex traffickers on Snapchat into taking nude photos and videos of himself. Two years later, he learned from his high school classmates that his images were being shared as child sex abuse material on Twitter.
The social networking platform, later renamed X, initially dismissed the family’s reports, responding: “We’ve reviewed the content, and didn’t find a violation of our policies, so no action will be taken at this time.”
John Doe’s family filed multiple reports with Twitter, their local police department and ultimately with the US Department of Homeland Security before Twitter removed the sexually graphic material. While it was live, the illegal content racked up over 167,000 views on Twitter, and John Doe experienced “harassment, vicious bullying, and became suicidal,” according to the family’s initial complaint in its 2021 lawsuit against Twitter.
The creation and distribution of
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