Elon Musk's X Hit With Hefty Fine For Neglecting Child Safety In Australia

Elon Musk's social media platform X (formerly called Twitter) has been fined 610,500 Australian dollars on account of child abuse content. This fine marks the first time a platform has been held accountable under Australia's Online Safety Act.

Why was X fined?

In February, Australia's eSafety Commission asked X, TikTok, Google, Discord, and Twitch to share details about their measures for detecting and deleting child sexual abuse content.

It appears that X failed to lodge in a response for some questions. In fact, the company left "some sections entirely blank."

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What do Australian laws say?

"If you have answers to questions, if you're actively implementing measures to tackle illegal content at scale, and globally, and if it's your stated priority, it's relatively straightforward to comply," Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.

¡°In February, I asked @X, @tiktokaustralia, @Google, @discord and @Twitch what steps they are taking to tackle these crimes against children playing out on their services.?Their answers revealed troubling shortfalls and inconsistencies.¡± @tweetinjules https://t.co/AKRL5lGW59 pic.twitter.com/XZPZOREE7V

¡ª eSafety Commissioner (@eSafetyOffice) October 16, 2023

Until 2016, Grant served as a public policy director at Twitter. "The only reason I can see for failing to answer important questions about illegal content and conduct happening on platforms would be if you lack answers," she wrote.

Also read: X Will Remove Actions Buttons That Show Likes, Reposts, And More: Elon Musk

Reuters

According to Australian laws that came into effect in 2021, internet companies may be required to provide information about their digital safety practices to the commissioner. If they fail to comply, they may face fines.

What did X say?

Earlier, Elon Musk had stated that "removing child exploitation is priority #1." But when the commissioner asked X how the service prevented child grooming, the company said that it was "not a service used by large numbers of young people."

In addition, the company stated that their available anti-grooming technology was "not sufficiently capable or accurate for deployment on Twitter." X also failed to respond to questions pertaining to response times to reports of child abuse, measures to detect child abuse in livestreams, and the number of staff members who are actively engaged in content moderation.

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Also read: X, Formerly Twitter, Could Move Behind Paywall For All Users, Elon Musk Said

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