Family sues Twitter; accuses social media giant of receiving, distributing child porn
ORLANDO, Fla. - A Central Florida teenager and his mother are suing Twitter. They filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the social media platform of everything from receiving and distributing child pornography to negligence.
"It initially started off with asking Twitter to remove the child porn with a cease and desist letter. Ultimately, that didn’t happen and law enforcement had to get involved," Attorney Lisa Haba said.
She’s one of the attorneys representing the mother and son.
"At 13 years old, our child was on Snapchat chatting with what he believed to be a 16-year-old female. He was exchanging pictures or images that quickly turned into extortion and the individual on the end of the line was not a 16-year-old female most likely," Haba said.
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According to the lawsuit, extortion started in 2017.
"Keep providing more material or they would distribute it to his parents, his coach, his pastor, other people in his life that mattered and he didn’t want them to see it," Haba said.
The boy began blocking and ignoring the threats and it stopped. Haba says last January, one of his classmates saw an explicit video of the boy on Twitter.
"At 16 years old, his entire high school began talking about a compilation video, every bit of the pornographic abuse," Haba said.
According to the lawsuit, on January 21, 2020, the victim contacted Twitter about the video, told them he is a minor, and asked that it be removed from the site.
The lawsuit alleges that Twitter asked him to send a picture ID to prove his identity and age.
"After he provided everything that Twitter needed showing it was illegal, it was child sexual abuse material. Our child was 13-14 at the time, still a child when he sent in proof of age. Twitter refused to take it down, saying they didn’t find it to be a violation of their policy," Haba said.
That video of the teen got 167,000 views and 2,223 retweets in nine days on Twitter, according to the lawsuit. Haba says that there's no excuse for that.
"The videos were taken down after law enforcement got involved and after the Department of Homeland Security mandated they come down and confirmed this was child sexual abuse material," Haba said.
FOX 35 News reached out to Twitter for comment. So far, the social media site has not responded.
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