By 
Australia’s e-Safety Commission has issued a fine of A$610,500 ($386,000) to Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, due to its lack of cooperation during an investigation into anti-child abuse practices. This presents a significant setback to the company, which has been grappling with a decline in revenue as advertisers express concerns about the platform’s content moderation policies.
The e-Safety Commission has penalized X, the platform previously known as Twitter after its rebranding by Musk. The fine was imposed because the platform failed to respond adequately to inquiries, including the time it took to address reports of child abuse content on the platform and the methods employed to detect such content.
While the fine, in comparison to the $44 billion Musk paid for the website in October 2022, may seem relatively small, it has dealt a blow to X’s reputation. The platform has experienced a steady decline in revenue as advertisers became apprehensive about the company’s approach to content moderation and the reinstatement of previously banned accounts.
Most recently, the European Union (EU) initiated an investigation into X to determine whether it violated new tech regulations. This action followed allegations that the platform did not take sufficient measures to curb disinformation related to Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Commissioner Julie Inman Grant stated in an interview, “If you’ve got answers to questions, if you’re actually putting people, processes, and technology in place to tackle illegal content at scale, and globally, and if it’s your stated priority, it’s pretty easy to say.” She further added, “The only reason I can see to fail to answer important questions about illegal content and conduct happening on platforms would be if you don’t have answers.” Inman Grant had previously served as a public policy director for X until 2016.
Since Musk’s acquisition of X, the platform has closed its Australian office, leaving no local representative available to respond to Reuters. A request for comment sent to the San Francisco-based company’s media email address remained unanswered.
Australian regulations introduced in 2021 enable the regulator to compel internet companies to provide information about their online safety practices, with the penalty for noncompliance being a fine. In case X refuses to pay the fine, the regulator can resort to legal action, according to Grant.
After taking the company private, Musk had publicly stated that “removing child exploitation is priority #1.” However, the Australian regulator found that when asked how X prevented child grooming on the platform, X responded that it was “not a service used by large numbers of young people.” X also informed the regulator that the available anti-grooming technology was “not of sufficient capability or accuracy to be deployed on Twitter.”
In addition to the fine on X, the commission issued a warning to Alphabet’s Google for not complying with its request for information concerning the handling of child abuse content. The commission criticized Google’s responses to certain questions as “generic.” Google expressed disappointment with the warning but affirmed its commitment to collaborating with the e-Safety Commissioner and other stakeholders to enhance online safety for Australians.
The regulator considered X’s noncompliance as more severe, citing failures to respond to questions about response times to child abuse reports, methods for detecting child abuse during live streams, and the numbers of staff dedicated to content moderation, safety, and public policy. The company disclosed to the regulator that it had reduced its global workforce by 80% and no longer had public policy staff in Australia, compared to the two it had before Musk’s acquisition.
X also admitted to the regulator that its proactive detection of child abuse material in public posts had decreased since it was taken private by Musk. The company cited that it did not use tools to identify such content in private messages because “the technology is still in development.”
Comments