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Last week, Twitter Safety tweeted that the platform is now “moving faster than ever” to remove child sexual abuse materials (CSAM). It seems, however, that’s not entirely accurate. Child safety advocates told The New York Times that after Elon Musk took over, Twitter started taking twice as long to remove CSAM flagged by various organizations.

The platform has since improved and is now removing CSAM almost as fast as it was before Musk’s takeover—responding to reports in less than two days—The Times reported. But there still seem to be issues with its CSAM reporting system that continue to delay response times. In one concerning case, a Canadian organization spent a week notifying Twitter daily—as the illegal imagery of a victim younger than 10 spread unchecked—before Twitter finally removed the content.

"From our standpoint, every minute that that content's up, it's re-victimizing that child," Gavin Portnoy, vice president of communications for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), told Ars. "That's concerning to us."

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New details have been revealed through recently unsealed Cook County court documents, showing how federal investigators in 2020 gained access to encrypted Telegram messages to uncover “a cross-country network of people sexually exploiting children.”

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents based in Arizona launched “Operation Swipe Left” in 2020 to investigate claims of kidnapping, livestreaming child abuse, and production and distribution of child sexual abuse materials (CSAM). That investigation led to criminal charges filed against at least 17 people. The majority of defendants were living in Arizona, but others charged were residents of Illinois, Wisconsin, Washington, DC, California, and South Africa. Ten children were rescued, including four children actively suffering abuse at the time of the rescue. The youngest victim identified was 6 months old, and the oldest was 17 years old.

Telegram became a preferred tool for defendants in this investigation, many of whom believed that police could never access their encrypted messages. At least one federal prosecutor told a judge that authorities never would have gained access; however, one of the defendants, Adam Hageman, “fully cooperated” with investigators and granted access through his account to offending Telegram groups.

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A few weeks ago, Twitter CEO Elon Musk asked his remaining staff for a show of loyalty by prompting them to click a "yes" link in an email. By clicking yes, the employees were telling Musk that they agreed to work longer hours—if they could keep their jobs. It was Musk’s way of seeing who on his existing team was truly ready to fall in line behind his “ hardcore” efforts to build Twitter 2.0 . Musk quickly learned how unattractive his offer was when an overwhelming number of employees did not click yes, and among those rejecting Musk’s severe terms was apparently almost half of Twitter’s global team dedicated to preventing child sexual exploitation on the platform.

Three people familiar with Twitter’s current staffing told Bloomberg that when 2022 started, Twitter had 20 team members responsible for reviewing and escalating reports of child sexual abuse materials (CSAM). Today, after layoffs and resignations, there are fewer than 10 specialists forming what Bloomberg described as “an overwhelmed skeleton crew.” It seems that despite Musk continually tweeting that blocking CSAM is Twitter’s top priority and even going so far as inviting users to tweet CSAM directly at him , Musk may already be losing his battle to keep the material off Twitter.

“Musk didn’t create an environment where the team wanted to stay,” sources told Bloomberg.

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After a TikTok accusing Patreon of ignoring reports and knowingly profiting off accounts posting child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) attracted hundreds of thousands of views, more TikTokers piled on, generating more interest . Patreon immediately responded by branding the TikToks as disinformation. In a blog , Patreon denied allegations, accusing TikTokers of spreading a “conspiracy that Patreon knowingly hosts illegal and child-exploitative material.”

According to Patreon, the conspiracy theory sprang from a fake post on a job-posting site; Vice later reported that site was Glassdoor. The Glassdoor review was posted in August and claimed that Patreon refused to respond to reports of accounts suspected of “selling lewd photographs” of children. As TikTokers described their failed attempts to report these accounts, Patreon laid off members of its security team and, Patreon said, “onlookers inaccurately linked" the "small-scale staffing changes we made last week to our security organization." The TikTokers claimed that Patreon laid off its staff specifically for not complying with orders to allow CSAM to stay on the platform.

“Dangerous and conspiratorial disinformation began circulating on social media recently,” Patreon said. “We want to let all of our creators and patrons know that these claims are unequivocally false and set the record straight.”