Elon Musk thanked the Italian computer scientist who helps Twitter track down pedophiles

“Thank you Andrea for helping us with this important issue.”

And the thank you tweets that Elon Musk, one of the most influential men in the world, as well as one of the most discussed since he bought Twitter for $44 billionhe addressed to Andrew Stroppathirty-two year old Italian among the most promising experts of cyber security of our country.

Stroppa in recent weeks has advised Twitter as an “independent researcher”, working with the team that takes care of the reliability and security of the social network.

With a long threads published last December 3, Stroppa highlighted how “Twitter has updated its mechanism to identify content related to the sexual exploitation and abuse of minors. Faster, more efficiently and more aggressively.”

“The daily suspension rate [degli account, ndr] it has almost doubled in recent days – added Stroppa -. It means that Twitter is doing a detailed analysis of the contents, especially those published in the past. It doesn’t matter when illegal content was posted. Twitter will find it and act accordingly.”

Stroppa, who occasionally writes for Republic and HuffingtonPost, newspapers of the Gedi Group to which Italian Tech also belongs, also claims that “Twitter continues to have teams dedicated to investigating and acting on this type of violation on a daily basis. The teams are more determined than ever and made up of passionate experts.”

This statement is particularly important, especially in the light of recent cuts made by Musk to the workforce of the social network. On November 4, about 3,700 employees – more than half of the entire staff – were made redundant. Others have left, according to US media reports in recent weeks, after the new owner’s ultimatum: “Go Hardcore” or goodbye. In summary: give it your all if you want to work at Twitter again.

Musk’s cuts, in light of an investigation published by Wired Usa, appear worrying precisely in the light of the fight against the exploitation of minors, which Stroppa also wrote about. “Layoffs Destroyed Child Safety Team” is the title of the article published by Wired last November 28th. “Only one person – claims the American newspaper – remains to monitor the abuses on the platform concerning the sexual exploitation of minors in Asia and Japan”.

Stroppa does not refer to the two areas mentioned by Wired. Indeed he speaks, in his own threadsof the efforts that “in these hours” Twitter is making “on the networks of Spanish and Portuguese-speaking users who share content of child sexual exploitation”.

The young Italian cybersecurity expert received thanks from Elon Musk and activists fighting child trafficking. “In these hours I have received many messages – writes Stroppa on Twitter — but the one person to thank for protecting children’s safety is Elon Musk.”

In recent times the richest man in the world has often been the focus of attention of Andrea Stroppa, who in the short Twitter bio he defines himself as a “SpaceX fan”one of the companies of which Musk is CEO.

Last November 13, for Repubblica, Stroppa wrote an article in which he underlined how starlinks (another Musk company) may prove to be an opportunity for Italy and for all areas of our country that are not covered by an internet connection. An article that was commented on by Musk himself, who shared it with his 120 million Twitter followers.

Last May, however, Stroppa – which also collaborates with the World Economic Forum in Davos and other prestigious international newspapers – analyzed the interactions under the post of Business Insider about what was defined at the time “Elongate”it sex scandal concerning the alleged harassment by the entrepreneur against an employee of SpaceX. Stroppa noted how i bot of Twitter have helped to increase the virality of the tweet that conveyed the Business Insider article and which it effectively disparaged Elon Musk.