Australia fines X over child abuse contents

Elon Musk’s social media platform X has been fined A$610,500 ($386,000) by an Australian regulator for refusing to assist with an investigation into anti-child abuse procedures.

The e-Safety Commission penalised X for not responding to inquiries about the processes it used to detect child abuse content on the platform and how long it took to respond to reports of it.

“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,” Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in an interview.

Australian regulations that went into force in 2021 give the regulator the power to punish internet companies that fail to disclose information about their online safety policies. According to Grant, the regulator may take the company to court if X refuses to pay the penalties.

The anti-grooming technology that is currently on the market, according to X, “is not of sufficient capability or accuracy to be deployed on Twitter.”

Inman Grant stated that the commission also issued a warning to Alphabet’s Google for noncompliance with its request for information about handling child abuse content, referring to the search engine giant’s responses to several inquiries as “generic”. Google expressed disappointment at the notice despite having worked with the regulator.