Suffered from sexual abuse of children asks Elon Musk to remove ties to her images

A victim of sexual abuse of children has asked Elon Musk to stop relationships offering images of her abuse published on his social media platform X.

“The hearing that my abuse – and the abuse of so many others – is still spreading and codifling here, is infuriating,” says Zora (not her real name), which lives in the United States and was abused for the first time more than 20 years ago.

“Every time someone sells or shares material for abuse of children, it directly nourishes the original, terrifying abuse.”

X says he has “zero tolerance for the material for sexual abuse of children” and deals with those who exploit children remains a “top priority”.

The BBC has found images of Zora while investigating global trade in children’s abuse of children estimated at billions of dollars from Childlight, the Global Children’s Safety Institute.

The material was among the cache of thousands of similar photos and videos available for sale in the X account. We contacted the merchant through the Telegram messaging app and this led us to a bank account related to a person in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Zora was first abused by a family member. A collection of images of her abuse became scandalous among pedophiles who collect and trade in such content. Many other victims are faced with the same situation as the images of abuse continue to spread today.

Zora is angry that trade continues to this day.

“My body is not a commodity. It has never been and will never be,” she says.

“Those who spread this material are not passive lateral, they are complicits of perpetrators.”

The images of Zora’s abuse were initially accessible only on the so -called dark network, but it now has to live with the reality that the connections are promoted to the X.

Social media platforms are trying to save their platforms from illegal materials, but the scale of the problem is huge.

Last year, the US National Center for extinct and operated children (NCMEC) received over 20 million mandatory reports from technology companies on incidents with sexual abuse of children (CSAM) – illegal images and videos on their platforms.

NCMEC tries to identify victims and perpetrators, then the organization connects to law enforcement.

We turned to the anonymous of the “Hactivist” group whose members are trying to fight the trade with images of abuse of children of X. One of them told us that the situation is as bad as always.

They sent us about an X account. He uses a photo of the head and shoulders of a real child as his avatar. There was nothing irrecently about that.

But the words and Emoji in the biography of the account made it clear that the owner sells sexual abuse materials over children and had a connection to an account in the Telegram message app.

It seems that the merchant is based in Indonesia and offered “VIP packages”, collections of images and video files for abuse for the sale of pedophiles worldwide.

The anonymous activist works to report multiple X accounts to this X so that they can be removed from the platform moderation systems. But every time one account was removed, he told us, another new would replace it.

It seems that the trader is watching over 100 almost identical accounts. The activist told us that when he contacted the merchant directly, using Telegram, the merchant replied, saying that there were thousands of videos and images for sale.

“I have a baby. Children young 7-12,” he wrote in messages to the activist seen by BBC. He also explained that part of the content showed rape of children.

We contacted the merchant ourselves.

He provided links to samples of material that we did not open or examine. Instead, we contacted experts from the Canadian Center for the Protection of the Child (CCCP) in Winnipeg – who work with law enforcement agencies and are legally allowed to consider such content.

“The Telegram profile was, due to the lack of a better time, a package taster – essentially a collage of the material that had all the different victims,” ​​explained Lloyd Richardson, director of CCCP technology. “When we looked at all the different images in the collages, I would say there are thousands.”

The files were dawn images.

Her abuser in the United States was persecuted and closed many years ago, but not before the abuse of abuse were already shared and sold around the world.

Zora told us, “I have tried over the years to overcome my past and not allow it to determine my future, but the perpetrators and stalkers still find a way to see this dirt.”

As he aged, Stalkers revealed Zora’s identity, connecting and threatening her online. She says she feels “harassed because of a crime that robbed me of my childhood.”

To identify the merchant who sells photos of Zora, we posed as a buyer.

The merchant sent us his bank information and an online payment account, both had the same name listed as the account holder.

The anonymous activist had found that this name was also related to two money transfers and another bank account.

We followed a man of the same name as the one indicated in the accounts, at the outskirts of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

A producer working in the city for the BBC World Service went to visit the address and encountered a man in the premises, who, when presented with the evidence, said he was shocked.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said.

The man confirmed that one of the bank accounts was his and said it was created for a mortgage deal. He said he had not used the bill since then and that he would contact his bank to find out what had happened. He denied the knowledge of the other bank account or money transfers.

We cannot know for sure whether and to what extent it can be involved and as a result we do not name it.

The way the images of Zora are offered is a method used by hundreds of traders worldwide, found our investigation.

X publications use different hashtags known to pedophiles. The images that appear on the platform are often made from known images of abuse of children, but can be cut so that they are not obscene.

Elon Musk said the removal of sexual abuse material over children was his “top priority” when he took over X, then known as Twitter, in 2022.

Social media platforms in general, not just X, could do a lot more to prevent criminals from publishing many times in this way, says Lloyd Richardson of CCCP.

“It’s great that we can send a download notice (on social media platforms) and they remove the account, but this is the biggest minimum.”

The problem is that users can return to the platforms in a few days with a new account, he says.

X told us that there was a “zero tolerance” to the sexual exploitation of children. “We are constantly investing in advanced opening to allow us to take quick action against content and accounts that violate our rules,” said a spokesman.

The platform told us that it works “closely with the National Center for Missing and Operated Children (NCMEC) and supports efforts to enforce these disgusting crimes.”

Telegram said: “All channels are moderated and more than 565,000 groups and channels related to CSAM spread have been banned so far in 2025”

The platform said there were more than a thousand moderators working on the matter.

“Telegram proactively monitors the public content throughout the platform and removes unwanted materials before it can reach users or be reported,” said a spokesman.

When we told Zora that her photos were traded with the help of X, she had this message for platform owner Elon Musk: “Our abuse is shared, traded and selling in the application you own. If you are holding on to protect your own children, please do the same for the rest of us.”

If you are affected by any of the problems raised in this report, assistance and maintenance are available through BBC action line