On December 25 (local time), a new report started making rounds on social media that the former Twitter Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Parag Agrawal got arrested in a child porn case. The report was published by the website vancouvertimes.org. The report suggested that Agrawal was arrested for possession of child pornography after Twitter’s new owner and CEO Elon Musk tipped off about it.
The report claimed that Agrawal was arrested from his home by the FBI, and he was expected to be released on bail. Furthermore, the report claimed that Agrawal not only collected the material from social media websites but decided not to take action against those who shared the same material on Twitter. They also added some relevant tweets to give the report touch of a real report.
Netizens react
Several netizens reacted to the report. Twitter user OhAnji77 thanked Elon Musk and said, “Thank you Elon Musk for exposing and getting rid of this trash. Now can you get the FBI shills off of the Twitter staff?
Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal arrested for child porn.”
Twitter user Pat Brody said, “BREAKING: Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, has been arrested for possession of child porn after tip from Twitter insider.”
Twitter user Justice Will Prevail said, “Parag Agrawal, former CEO of Twitter, arrested for possession of child pornography after a tip off from Elon Musk. The executive was arrested at his home in California by the FBI. His lawyer has stated to the Vancouver Times that he plans on pleading not guilty.”
Twitter user Great Americal Mail said, “Former Twitter CEO Parag has been arrested for child porn. Figures or honestly surprised?”
Twitter user Entium speculated that “they are all over”.
Twitter user Usman expressed his shock.
The truth behind the ‘news website’
The report’s links and screenshots went viral on social media, but the reality is no arrest took place. Vancouver Times is a satire website; the report was nothing more than a dark joke. The website itself has added a disclaimer at the bottom of the report that reads, “Fact-checkers wasted their time “fact-checking” this obvious satire article. To ease confusion, the article has been added to the satire section, and a note has been added to the bottom of the article.”
Vancouver Times’ About Us page also mentions that it is a satire website. It reads, “Vancouver Times is the most trusted source for satire on the West Coast. We write satirical stories about issues that affect conservatives. We are not affiliated with the mainstream media (CBC, CTV etc.) in any way, and any similarities between our content, the names of our authors, and that of the MSM are purely coincidental.”
Twitter community notes cleared the air
Twitter users subscribed to Community Notes also added information about the website being a satire. The note read, “Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal was not arrested for possession of child porn. The website linked, vancouvertimes.org is a self-described satire website. vancouvertimes.org/about-us/”
Elon Musk’s war against child porn on Twitter
It was recently revealed that Twitter was allegedly consistently ignoring the rampant distribution of child pornography on its platform. It was only after Elon Musk took over the company that it seriously worked on stopping the content from being distributed. As per reports, major hashtags used for sharing such content, also known as ‘Child Sexual Exploitation’ content or ‘CSE’, have been removed from searches on Twitter. Furthermore, Twitter has added a specific option to report CSE content on the platform.
It is notable that since October 2020, Twitter has had a separate section for reporting CSE content on the platform. However, as per experts like Eliza Bleu, minimal effort was made by the platform until Musk took over the company. In October 2022, OpIndia detailed how, under ex-Twitter employee Vijaya Gadde, who was removed soon after Musk took over along with other top officials, Twitter had refused to take down child porn content even as the victim begged to remove it. Gadde was head of legal, policy, and trust at Twitter. Her role included handling issues such as harassment, misinformation, and harmful speech. Her failure to address repeated requests to take action against CSE content was heavily criticised by experts, victims and the public in general. Not only Gadde’s department, other teams, including human rights etc., failed to address the issue.
Verdict: The reports that former CEO of Twitter Parag Agrawal was arrested for possession of child porn are fake.
