Child sexual assault material (CSAM) is on mainstream social platforms that we use every day. The same ones that connect us to friends and family are also destroying the lives of children whose sexual abuse has been filmed, then shared and reshared. Over and over again.

And while all platforms are failing our children. The failures of Twitter are especially egregious. Twitter does not offer the infrastructure to report any tweets containing CSAM. In fact, among all popular platforms, Twitter’s reporting infrastructure has been ranked the worst.

Our objective was to put pressure on the platform and demand change. To do this we needed to educate and enrage people with the truth of the enormous failures of Twitter. With no paid media, we needed to ensure this conversation spread to as many corners of the globe, with the goal of achieving over 150 million impressions, making it unignorable.

On March 21st, Twitter would be turning 15 years old. While it’s a fun age for most, for survivors of CSAM, fifteen years of Twitter represents enduring years and years of their content being spread, popping up over and over again on this public platform. With 15 years of no action and no accountability, it was the perfect time to give survivors a voice to share the ‘gifts’ that Twitter had given them year over year.

We created a powerful video capturing the collective voices and raw emotion of real survivors to illustrate the true human cost behind Twitter’s 15 years. The film begins by wishing the social media giant a happy 15th birthday. The tone then begins to shift as the survivors recount their own experiences at that age—the abuse they suffered and the lengths they’ve gone to try and get Twitter to remove their CSAM from the platform.

We aimed to hijack newsfeeds by launching in advance of the platform’s big day, a milestone media would be covering and celebrating. To ensure our powerful message was heard, we kept the call to action simple: share this message and demand change from Twitter. Knowing Twitter would likely not respond based on past interactions, we wanted to ensure we drove impact on the platform itself without relying on the algorithm to do this. Leveraging the egregious data of the platform’s failings and the powerful video, we developed a press release to share with key outlets with the potential to syndicate around the globe.

To ensure we reached as many people as possible, we outreached to key outlets with an embargo and identified potential influential advocates who have spoken on similar issues. By leveraging their organic following, we could spark a chain reaction to have our message spread

Four days in advance of the birthday on March 21, the video was released on the very platform where we wanted to bring change, using the reach and scale of Twitter against them. To ensure it spread just as quickly as the Twitter algorithm distributes content, we seeded the video with influential advocates ranging from celebrities like Ricky Martin and Mayim Bialik to New York Times investigative reporter Nicholas Kristoff and survivor advocates like Eliza Bleu.

Leveraging the timely news hook we conducted proactive outreach to key publications with strong distribution networks across North America, offering interviews with key spokespeople from C3P to draw attention to the devastating issue, all driving back with the same CTA as share on the platform and demand change.

The four day campaign generated over 330 million impressions worldwide, surpassing our goal by 120% with coverage from Canada to the US and Asia. All coverage highlighted the failings of the platform and included the impactful video to share the human cost. On Twitter alone, over 30 million impressions were generated with thousands of people sharing the #TwitterBirthdayPlea message, spreading far and wide - all without any paid media to support. Spreading around the globe, just as Twitter is famous for doing, messages demanding change from Twitter came pouring in from over 30 countries including Canada, the United States, Spain, Australia, Mexico, India, Germany, and even Guyana.

In the days following, Twitter refused to comment outside of their automated response in fear of adding more fuel to the fire.

Weeks following the campaign the hashtag #TwitterBirthdayPlea and video are still being shared across the platform. Two weeks after the campaign broke, The Five Eyes (an intelligence alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States) invited the Canadian Centre for Child Protection to speak at a meeting concerning the global epidemic of CSAM online.

Our only outstanding birthday wish is that Twitter would accept our gift of a free tool that would protect OUR kids, on YOUR platform. Because you are right Jack Dorsey, the material doesn’t violate your policy, it violates basic human decency.