Due to their ads running alongside tweets promoting child pornography, some big advertisers, including Dyson, Mazda, and chemicals giant Ecolab, have suspended their marketing campaigns or pulled their advertisements from some portions of Twitter.
According to a Reuters review of accounts identified by cybersecurity group Ghost Data in new research about child sex abuse online Ads of some 30 brands, including Walt Disney Company, Coca-Cola, and even a children’s hospital, have been seen on the profile pages of Twitter accounts that promote links to the exploitative material.
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One example is of the shoes and accessories brand Cole Haan whose ad appeared next to a tweet in which the user posted about “trading teen/child” content.
Several tweets contained phrases like “rape” and “teens,” among others.
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In another instance, a user posted their search for “Yung girls ONLY, NO Boys,” material on Twitter which was followed immediately by a promotional tweet for the Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital in Texas.
Ghost Data found that over 500 accounts shared or requested explicit child sex abuse content over the course of 20 days this month. The organisation, as per Reuters, claims that Twitter failed to delete more than 70 per cent of the accounts during the study period.
Like all social media platforms, Twitter forbids images that portray child sexual exploitation. However, it normally allows for sexual content and hosts a booming exchange of pornographic images, which, as per the Reuters report account for around 13 per cent of all content on Twitter.
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Celeste Carswell, a spokesperson for Twitter, said in a statement that the business “has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation” and is allocating additional resources to improving child safety, including hiring for new positions to develop policies and put them into practice.
Twitter is closely collaborating with its advertising partners and clients to look into the incident and take appropriate action to ensure that it doesn’t occur again, she added.
(With inputs from agencies)
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