Elon Musk's enterprise, X, formerly recognized as Twitter, is actively recruiting a team of 100 content moderators for its upcoming Austin, Texas office. This new unit, according to an executive's Saturday announcement, will be dedicated to mitigating child abuse incidents on the social media platform.
Under the leadership of CEO Linda Yaccarino, X unveiled its latest venture, the "Trust and Safety Center of Excellence," in a recent blog post. This initiative marks a significant step in the company's ongoing campaign against child sexual exploitation (CSE) online.
Despite X not being a primary platform for young users – with those aged 13-17 making up less than 1% of its daily U.S. user base – Yaccarino emphasized the company's proactive stance. Efforts have intensified to obstruct malicious entities from distributing or interacting with CSE material on X, all the while streamlining the process for users to report such content.
Yaccarino highlighted advancements in the platform's detection systems, aimed at identifying and reporting more CSE-related content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
This proactive approach is evident in the platform's recent actions; X shut down 12.4 million accounts in 2023 for CSE policy violations, a significant increase from the 2.3 million suspensions in 2022. Furthermore, the platform escalated 850,000 CSE-related reports to NCMEC in 2023, marking a substantial growth from previous years.
Post-acquisition by Musk's team in 2022, X faced scrutiny over changes in content moderation policies, leading to a reevaluation of the platform by several advertisers. Despite this, Musk and his company are resolute in their mission, actively setting up the Trust and Safety center in Austin and aiming to complete the hiring phase by year's end, contingent on securing the right expertise.
The new center in Austin is not only a testament to X's commitment to combatting child abuse but also serves as a hub for tackling a broader spectrum of detrimental online content.
