Ángel Jiménez from Luis USA

USA

Updated Tuesday, January 30, 2024-07:31

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Taylor Swift

, to no one's surprise, is one of the most searched names on the internet. Every day millions of people around the world turn to

Google

,

Bing

and the websites of newspapers and television networks to find the latest news about the singer, the lyrics of her songs or photos of her concerts.

But over the past weekend, those who tried searching for it on social network

Elon Musk

's social network

made the drastic decision to display that message late on Friday. Those responsible for her thus acknowledged being incapable of dealing with a wave of

sexually explicit images of the singer, generated by artificial intelligence

, that had been flooding her servers for days. After instituting the search block, and in a lengthy message, X's security team reminded that the publication of non-consensual nude images is strictly prohibited.

The measure was not only desperate but ineffective. By changing the order of the search terms it was possible to continue accessing the images. Some of these photographs had millions of views before being deleted.

An army of "

swifties

" - as the singer's fans are called - had to help

identify many of the users who published the images

. They still do it. They have been reporting accounts and uploading real images of Swift at her concerts for days to flood search results and cause sexually explicit images to lose visibility.

Team decimated

The issue has served to underscore the consequences of

Musk's drastic staff cuts

. After taking over Twitter - now

Now he's trying to back down. Last Saturday, in the midst of the battle to stop Swift's images, Musk announced the creation of

a new moderation center in Austin that will employ 100 people

and will begin operating before the end of the year.

The main task of the new division, which Musk has dubbed the "Trust and Safety Center of Excellence", will above all be

tracking the social network in search of images of sexual abuse of minors

, a problem that affects all social networks but which had become a scourge for Twitter. In 2023

alone

, X suspended 12.4 million accounts

for posting images and videos of child exploitation, including child sexual abuse.

The center, however, will also be responsible for proactively identifying and suspending accounts that post photos or videos that do not comply with the company's standards. Until now, except in extreme cases, the moderation team acted only when it received a complaint from a user.

With the announcement, Musk also ensures ammunition for the appearance that the company's president,

Linda Yaccarino

, will have to make this week before the US Senate. It will be precisely to talk about child exploitation on social networks and it is expected that executives from Meta, Snapchat and TikTok also appear.