The lawsuit alleged that X, then Twitter, failed to take prompt action in removing explicit photos of two minors, allowing the images to rack up tens of thousands of views before they were eventually taken down.
A federal appeals court has revived a case that alleges that X was negligent in its handling of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and “slow-walked its response” to reports.
The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco, said X must face a claim that it failed to promptly report a video containing explicit images of two underage boys to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The lawsuit was originally filed in 2021, before Elon Musk’s 2022 takeover of the platform.
In one example, the plaintiffs claim that a 13-year-old boy was tricked into sharing explicit images of himself via Snapchat, which were then shared on X. These images were later reported by the boy and his mother, who supplied ID and complied with X’s reporting processes.
