X’s global head of government affairs Nick Pickles has defended Elon Musk’s decision to reinstate a notorious account in 2023 that shared child sexual abuse material on the social media platform, Nick Pickles is leaving the company, according to a tweet. Pickles said he made the decision to leave “months ago” and gave no explanation of where he might go next.
“More than a decade later, tomorrow will be my last day at X. It has been an incredible journey,” Pickles wrote Thursday. “Throughout my time at Twitter and X, the great people I’ve worked with inside and outside the company have been a constant. Being able to lead @global affairs The team and I left with more memories and lifelong friendships than I expected when I first walked into the London office in 2014.
Pickles, 40, decided to stay at the company after Musk acquired the platform in late 2022, an option that many other executives did not choose given the billionaire’s far-right politics and reputation for impulsive and foolish actions. Decide. Of course, many other top executives were fired by Musk and are currently suing over unpaid severance contracts.
The company was originally known as Twitter before Musk renamed the company X after more than a decade of brand equity, but the bankers who helped him close the deal lost huge sums of money. Musk bought Twitter for about $45 billion, and the company is now worth about $19 billion.
Even before Musk purchased the site, Pickles’ tenure as head of global affairs was controversial. But what was truly shocking was his testimony at the Australian Parliament hearing on online content moderation on August 9, 2023. The Australian Parliament’s Joint Committee on Law Enforcement heard from a number of large technology companies including Google and Facebook. Twitter’s response to various questions about online safety has been among the most confusing.
Strangely, Pickles’ testimony did not attract much attention in the United States, possibly because it was given before an Australian government committee and American audiences tend to shy away from international news. But it caused quite a stir in Australia, raising many questions about what exactly social media platforms are doing to police the worst online content. The Australian government website no longer has a copy of last year’s live testimony, but Gizmodo has a clip we uploaded to YouTube to give you a sense of how surreal Pickles’ testimony was.
Pickles sought to explain why sharing child sexual abuse material on X was not an automatic ban from the platform. Incredibly, Pickles tries to say that people may be sharing this content “out of anger” or “to raise awareness,” both of which are bizarre answers.
“Accounts dedicated to distribution, accounts participating in this activity, we want to shut down Twitter, Whether the content was an appropriate response,” Pickles said at the August 2023 hearing.
But Australian senators obviously don’t think so.
“Well, I’m sorry, but if I’m angry about something, I’m not going to share it to make a point,” Australian Senator Helen Poli told Pickles at the hearing. “But what I would do is, if I were a consumer of this type of material, and you’re just saying now, if I’m just pretending to be outraged and share this, that’s okay.”
Polly pointed out that Australia has laws prohibiting people from sharing child abuse images online, just like other countries.
“Well, that’s actually a crime. It’s a crime and it should be permanently suspended,” Polley continued. “If what you posted was motivated by anger then you have no excuse, it is illogical to me and your account should not be permanently suspended.”
Musk made massive layoffs after taking control of the factory in October 2022, reportedly firing around 75% of the workforce, which hit the child safety team particularly hard, according to news media reports at the time. The conversation turned to a recent example, when a right-wing influencer shared Watermarked images of child sexual abuse. According to the agency, the abuse material was apparently among the worst images ever produced and showed a child being tortured. washington post.
Australian Senator David Shoebridge noted that Musk personally intervened and reinstated the account that shared the outrageous image.
“When it was pointed out that this account with over 500,000 followers tweeted an image containing child sexual abuse material, some of the most notorious and egregious child sexual abuse material, your boss Shoebridge said on Twitter that the account had been suspended and the profile deleted, but later reinstated after pressure from his followers, your boss Elon Musk. account.
Oddly enough, Pickles was trying to defend Policy X of allowing right-wing influencers to speak on the platform, which still exists today. He said some accounts may only be banned after sharing more than one offending image. The Australian senator, clearly unable to believe what she was hearing, asked Pickles if he had actually said that accounts would only be banned after repeatedly sharing images of child sexual abuse.
Anyone who has tried to create a social media platform will tell you that content moderation is difficult. Bluesky, a relatively new site that recently emerged as a Twitter alternative, is facing the same challenges as other sites as the site has grown rapidly over the past week. Musk’s stupid decision in Brazil led to X being banned in the country, and as a result Bluesky has seen an explosion of new registered users, up 50% in the past week alone. But Blue Sky leaders have been talking about growing pains this week.
“CSAM content is increasing 10x every week,” Aaron Roderick, director of trust and safety at Bluesky, wrote on Thursday. “While we are quickly detecting confirmed cases, NCMEC reports still require manual review. This increase affects our mods, and they Repeated exposure to this type of content.
But X does seem to be unique. As Musk furthers his idolization of people like Donald Trump, the site has increasingly become a haven and safe space for right-wing extremists. Musk’s version of X may lose huge amounts of money, but it exists as a very enjoyable online club where everyone tells him how smart and savvy he is. This is helpful for any insecure billionaire with more money than sense.
X did not immediately respond to an emailed question on Friday about whether the company stood by all of Pickles’ testimony in Australia last year. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear back.
