Don’t look now (seriously don’t), but X and its cousin Grok have a CSAM (child sexual abuse material) problem. And nobody is doing anything about it because nobody cares. And it has been coming (and happening) for awhile. Hell, Grok has been gross since at least last August.
It’s been going on for weeks (since at least January 2, probably earlier)! Thousands of users are asking Grok to make them pictures of all sorts of women and girls in all kinds of variations of disgusting.
I’d like to think that if any application or service introduced a new feature, and that feature wound up generating thousands of illegal images, that feature would be immediately shut down, with an apology (possibly a resignation) from the CEO. Not ignored at best and celebrated at worst.
And how the hell is the app still available in the app stores? You would think the Child Porn App would be pretty much immediately blocked by Apple and Google. And yet, there it is, still there.
This isn’t the first thing wrong that Elon Musk has done with the service, but it surely the most illegal. He bought to to be a mouthpiece for his ultraconservative, white supremacist views, and then did everything in his power to magnify those voices on the service. He let any chode with $8 and a love of Musk to put their (awful) replies at the top of every post. He tweaked the algorithm to make sure any sane voice was shoved to the bottom and outside the conversation. He posts the worst posts you have ever seen 2,000 times a day.
And as a result nearly all of the sane posters and scrollers left—some to TikTok (which note, is still illegal), some to Threads, some to Bluesky, and some to nothing at all. But some posters remained, for whatever the fuck ever reason.
It has become rife with the worst racism you can find on the internet, an absolute abundance of lies and misinformation, the vilest misogyny and harassment, and now some of the most problematic pornographic material ever generated by a gas turbine plant masquerading as the future of technology.
In the end, he destroyed whatever was left of the service. The only reason anybody knows it still exists is its history and brand of relevancy. Of course, he got rid of the brand too, because he is a smart businessman who knows how to do business.
But why the fuck is anybody sane still using that service? What good does it do? Are you trying to reach @1488WhiteManPowerLust with your little post about how Trump did something bad today? Going to convince @WomenShouldBeKilled88 that they should respect their fellow humans? Share your stupid blog post about French bread pizza with @StabKamala2001?
Because of my job! you yell back at me. Okay, sure, but I still don’t get it. What’s your job? Marketing to idiots? (Don’t answer that.) Is your company paying for advertisements on X (the Everything App)? Do you like your ads appearing next to CSAM and nazi memes? Do you like looking at CSAM and nazi memes?
For those who are still on X, are you also on Gab? Truth Social? Any of the other countless white supremacist water cooler sites? Because say what you will about Gab, but at least it isn’t poisoning a Black neighborhood to cook up 1,000s of pictures of children in bikinis for nazis.
But Gab doesn’t have “the reach” that X has, you yell back at me. Are you sure? Does X have any reach? Has anybody clicked on a link on X since 2020?
Because if you’re on X and not Gab, I seriously have no idea what to think of you. At least be consistent.
