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Elon Musk’s Twitter is working on removing child sexual abuse material at scale with “no mercy” for abusers

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Elon Musk’s Twitter is working on removing child sexual abuse (CSAM) at scale with “no mercy for those who are involved in these illegal activities.” Andrea Stroppa shared a thread on Twitter with updates on how Twitter has moved from being lenient toward the child abuse problem to tackling it head-on.

Stroppa spearheaded the research team at Ghost Data and found that over 500 accounts openly shared the illegal material over a 20-day period in September. You can view the full report here. In his thread, Stroppa noted that he worked as an independent researcher along Twitter’s Trust and Safety team led by Ms. Ella Irin during the past few weeks. “Twitter achieved some relevant results I want to share with you,” Stroppa tweeted.

Stroppa noted that Twitter updated its mechanism to detect content related to CSAM and that it is faster, more efficient, and more aggressive. “No mercy for those who are involved in these illegal activities.”

Over the past few days, Twitter’s daily suspension rate has almost doubled, which means that the platform is doing a capillary analysis of contents. “It doesn’t matter when illicit content has been published. Twitter will find it and act accordingly.”

Stroppa pointed out that within the past 24 hours, Twitter began increasing its efforts and took down 44,000 suspicious accounts, and over 1,300 of those profiles tried to bypass detection using codewords and text in images to communicate.

He added that Twitter is aware of strategies, keywords, external URLs, and communication methods used by these accounts. “To increase its ability to protect children’s safety, Twitter involved independent and expert third parties.”

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Stroppa added that Twitter is focusing its efforts on networks of Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking users that share CSAM. “Twitter continues to have teams in place dedicated to investigating and taking action on these types of violations daily. Teams are more determined than ever and composed of passionate experts. Furthermore, Twitter simplified the process of users reporting illicit content.”

In a statement to Teslarati, Stroppa said, “If these good things are happening, it’s because Elon really cares about children’s safety. With Elon, we share the idea of the light of consciousness. This light goes through millions of people and improves a bit of the world.”

Eliza Bleu, who has been pushing Twitter to protect children since before Elon Musk purchased the platform, previously emphasized that the content needed to be removed “at scale.” In August, The Verge found that Twitter was unable to detect CSAM at scale.

“Twitter cannot accurately detect child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity at scale,” the Red Team, “to pressure-test the decision to allow adult creators to monetize on the platform by specifically focusing on what it would look like for Twitter to do this safely and responsibly.”

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In her own thread, Eliza Bleu said that she never thought she would be able to tweet this, but “Twitter is currently working on detecting, removing, and reporting child sexual abuse material at scale.”

She added that the issue will take time to clean up, but the rapid changes are “just beautiful to see.”

On Saturday, Bleu told Teslarati, “While the corporate media was fear-mongering and spreading baseless conspiracy theories about Musk’s inability to tackle child sexual exploitation on Twitter with an alleged ‘skeleton crew,’ the platform was actually busy making amazing progress towards protecting sexually exploited children.”

“I’m extremely grateful to see the progress and the changes made under Elon Musk. He has accomplished in a month what the platform could not seem to do over the past decade about the issue of child sexual abuse material. The only time the platform previously made this much progress is when they implemented PhotoDNA.”

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The technology Bleu is referring to was created when Microsoft partnered with Dartmouth College in 2009. PhotoDNA aids organizations in finding and removing known images of child exploitation. Bleu also called out Twitter’s advertisers that left the platform, citing Elon Musk as the reason, yet were silent on Twitter’s slowness and, at times, refusal to remove CSAM from its platform.

Your feedback is welcome. If you have any comments or concerns or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter at @JohnnaCrider1.

Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. You can also follow Teslarati on LinkedInTwitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

 

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Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge writer covering Tesla, Elon Musk, EVs, and clean energy & supports Tesla's mission. Johnna also interviewed Elon Musk and you can listen here

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Tesla stuns with another FSD approval in Europe, its second in two days

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Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.

Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.

On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.

The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.

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The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.

Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.

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Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.

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SpaceX’s Elon Musk relieves worries about orbital data centers

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Rendering of Elon Musk overlooking a Starship fleet (Credit: Grok)
Rendering of Elon Musk overlooking a Starship fleet (Credit: Grok)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently confronted worries about orbital data centers and launching satellites in mass quantities in space, as some voiced concerns about crowding.

Musk’s SpaceX plans to combat the issue of needing data centers by launching them into space instead of taking up valuable real estate on Earth. It has been a major point of SpaceX’s future, including its looming IPO, which could be the largest ever.

In a recent interview filmed at SpaceX’s Starlink terminal factory in Bastrop, Texas, Elon Musk directly addressed concerns that deploying large numbers of AI satellites for orbital data centers could crowd Earth’s orbit. His message was straightforward and reassuring: space is vast beyond human intuition.

“Space is really big,” Musk said. “It’s not like space is gonna get crowded. Space is enormous. If you actually look at it relative to the Earth, the satellites are so tiny you can’t even see them.” He emphasized that even zooming in makes a satellite appear large, but from a planetary perspective, they are minuscule specks.

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Musk pointed to SpaceX’s real-world experience operating roughly 10,000 Starlink satellites as evidence that large constellations can be managed safely. “We’ve got a pretty good idea of how to operate just really large constellations and do it safely,” he noted. SpaceX remains the only operator with meaningful experience at this scale, giving the company unique insight into tight orbital packing without compromising safety

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The discussion highlighted SpaceX’s plans for “AI1” satellites—essentially orbiting racks of AI compute powered by massive solar arrays and cooled via radiative panels in space’s vacuum.

These satellites leverage proven Starlink V3 technology, making them simpler to design than communications satellites. A first-generation unit targets around 150 kW peak power, with a 70-meter wingspan for solar panels and radiators. Laser links will connect them to each other and the Starlink network, delivering low-latency access (on the order of a few milliseconds from low-Earth orbit).

FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan

Musk framed orbital data centers as a practical solution to Earth’s constraints on AI growth. Ground-based facilities face power shortages, water demands for cooling, and grid limitations. In space, constant sunlight (no day-night cycle), vacuum radiative cooling, and abundant solar energy offer clear advantages.

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Production will ramp up at an expanded “Gigasat” factory in Bastrop, with solar manufacturing already underway and full AI satellite output expected at reasonable volume by the end of 2027. Starship’s rapid, high-volume launch capability, aiming for multiple flights per hour, will make massive deployment feasible.

Critics sometimes raise risks like space debris or Kessler syndrome, but Musk’s response underscores scale: even a million satellites would represent an imperceptible fraction of available orbital volume when viewed against Earth’s size. SpaceX’s automated collision avoidance and deorbiting designs for Starlink further mitigate concerns.

This vision ties into broader ambitions. Musk sees orbital AI compute as a step toward harnessing more of the Sun’s energy, advancing humanity on the Kardashev scale from a Type 0 civilization toward Type 1 and eventually Type 2. By moving power-hungry data centers off-planet, SpaceX aims to unlock orders-of-magnitude more compute while preserving Earth’s resources.

Musk’s comments should ease public anxiety. With proven operational expertise, incremental engineering, and the immensity of space itself, orbital data centers represent not overcrowding, but smart expansion into the final frontier.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla Full Self-Driving hits Level 4? One analyst says yes

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is currently listed as a Level 2 suite in terms of its passenger cars. As its Robotaxi platform continues to move quickly, it has been recognized as a Level 4 ride-sharing program by the State of Texas, as Tesla recently self-certified itself.

However, a Wall Street analyst is arguing that Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has effectively achieved Level 4 autonomy in most conditions in all of its vehicles, drawing on personal experience and data released by the company.

Alex Potter of Piper Sandler said in a note to investors on Wednesday that “Tesla has solved the self-driving puzzle,” pointing to decisions to offer insurance discounts for FSD-enabled policies as a signal of confidence, which is backed up by stellar safety records compared to human driving.

Investing.com initially reported on Potter’s new note.

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Additionally, Potter looks at the recent start of Cybercab production at Giga Texas as a potential indication that Tesla is ready to offer some level of unsupervised driving at least in the near future. The Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals, completely eliminating the ability for human input.

He also sees Tesla’s allocation of “several hundred million USD (if not $1B+)” as confidence internally, seeing as it would be tough to set aside that amount of capital toward a project that the company does not see as relatively near-term.

Forward thinking, especially as Cybercab has no human controls, it would make sense that Tesla is at least close to self-driving. How close is another question.

Tesla has routinely teased that unsupervised FSD is close, but there are still a lot of things it feels as if the company has to roll out some more capability, including unsupervised parking features, known as “Banish,” better operation with regional self-driving performance, and other improvements.

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That is not to say that Tesla FSD is super impressive already. It has already completed coast-to-coast drives across the United States and Canada, it routinely takes the stress out of driving for most people, and it has proven through Tesla Safety Reports that it is safer and involved in accidents less frequently than humans.

Even Potter believes it is capable, as he used it to go from Missoula, Montana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, back in April.

“There’s no substitute for personal experience,” he wrote.

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