Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey Clash Over Twitter’s Record on Child Porn

CEO Elon Musk and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey clashed on the social media site Friday over Twitter’s track record on dealing with child pornography.

“It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!” Musk responded after conservative commentator Mike Cernovich tweeted at one of three people who resigned from Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council. Cernovich’s post linked to a Jan. 2021 New York Post report on a lawsuit over Twitter’s alleged failure to remove a pornographic video featuring a child.

Ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to Musk, saying that the claim was, “false.”

“No, it is not,” Musk responded in another tweet. Musk added that Ella Irwin, the new head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, raised the issue with former CEO Parag Agrawal and former CEO Ned Segal, but they denied her request for more staffing to address child porn.

Musk has previously said that dealing with child sexual exploitation on the social media site would be the top priority.

No, it is not.

When Ella Irwin, who now runs Trust & Safety, joined Twitter earlier this year, almost no one was working on child safety.

She raised this with Ned & Parag, but they rejected her staffing request.

I made it top priority immediately.@ellagirwin

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022