Anytime that an organization releases a report within the interval between Christmas and New Yr, when message traction is very low, it’s going to be obtained with a stage of skepticism from the press.

Which is the case this week, with X’s latest performance update. Amid ongoing considerations concerning the platform’s revised content material moderation strategy, which has seen extra offensive and dangerous posts stay lively within the app, prompting extra advert companions to halt their X campaigns, the corporate is now looking for to make clear its efforts on one key space, which Elon Musk himself had made a precedence. 

X’s newest replace focuses on its efforts to stamp out child sexual abuse material (CSAM), which it claims to have considerably diminished by way of improved processes over the past 18 months. Third social gathering studies contradict this, however in uncooked numbers, X is seemingly doing much more to detect and handle CSAM.

Although the small print listed below are related.

First off, X says that it’s suspending much more accounts for violating its guidelines on CSAM.

As per X: 

“From January to November of 2023, X completely suspended over 11 million accounts for violations of our CSE insurance policies. For reference, in all of 2022, Twitter suspended 2.3 million accounts.”

So X is actioning extra violations, although that may additionally embody wrongful suspensions and responses. Which continues to be higher than doing much less, however this, in itself, will not be an incredible reflection of enchancment on this entrance.

X additionally says that it’s reporting much more CSAM incidents:

“Within the first half of 2023, X despatched a complete of 430,000 studies to the NCMEC CyberTipline. In all of 2022, Twitter despatched over 98,000 studies.”

Which can be spectacular, however then once more, X can be now using “totally automated” NCMEC reporting, which implies that each detected put up is now not topic to handbook evaluate. So much more content material is subsequently being reported. 

Once more, you’d assume that results in a greater consequence, as extra studies ought to equal much less threat. However this determine can be not solely indicative of effectiveness with out information from NCMEC confirming the validity of such studies. So its reporting numbers are rising, however there’s not a heap of perception into broader efficient’s of its approaches.

For instance, X, at one stage, additionally claimed to have just about eradicated CSAM in a single day by blocking recognized hashtags from use. 

Which is probably going what X is referring to right here:

“Not solely are we detecting extra dangerous actors quicker, we’re additionally constructing new defenses that proactively scale back the discoverability of posts that include one of these content material. One such measure that we’ve lately applied has diminished the variety of profitable searches for recognized Youngster Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM) patterns by over 99% since December 2022.”

Which may be true for the recognized tags, however specialists declare that as quickly as X has blacklisted sure tags, CSAM peddlers have simply switched to different ones, so whereas exercise on sure searches might have diminished, it’s arduous to say that this has additionally been extremely efficient.

However the numbers look good, proper? It definitely looks like extra is being completed, and that CSAM is being restricted within the app. However with out definitive, expanded analysis, we don’t actually know for certain.

And as famous, third social gathering insights counsel that CSAM has grow to be extra extensively accessible within the app underneath X’s new guidelines and processes. Again in February, The New York Instances performed a research to uncover the speed of accessibility of CSAM within the app. It discovered that content material was straightforward to search out, that X was slower to motion studies of such than Twitter has been previously (leaving it lively within the app for longer), whereas X was additionally failing to adequately report CSAM occasion information to related companies (one in all companies in query has since famous that X has improved, largely on account of automated studies). One other report from NBC discovered the identical, that regardless of Musk’s proclamations the he was making CSAM detection a key precedence, a lot of X’s motion had been little greater than floor stage, and had no actual impact. The truth that Musk had additionally lower many of the group that had been answerable for this component had additionally probably exacerbated the issue, somewhat than improved it.

Making issues even worse, X lately reinstated the account of a distinguished proper wing influencer who’d beforehand been banned for sharing CSAM content material.

But, on the identical time, Elon and Co. are selling their motion to deal with CSAM as a key response to manufacturers pulling their X advert spend, as its numbers, in its view no less than, present that such considerations are invalid, as a result of it’s, in truth, doing extra to deal with this component. However most of these considerations relate extra particularly to Musk’s personal posts and feedback, to not CSAM particularly.

As such, it’s an odd report, shared at at odd time, which seemingly highlights X’s increasing effort, however doesn’t actually handle the entire associated considerations.

And while you additionally contemplate that X Corp is actively combating to dam a brand new legislation in California which might require social media firms to publicly reveal how they perform content material moderation on their platforms, the total slate of information doesn’t appear so as to add up.

Primarily, X is saying that it’s doing extra, and that its numbers replicate such. However that doesn’t definitively show that X is doing a greater job at limiting the unfold of CSAM. 

However theoretically, it ought to be limiting the move of CSAM within the app, by taking extra motion, automated or not, on extra posts.

The info definitely means that X is making an even bigger push on this entrance, however the effectiveness stays in query.