Elon Musk's X Hit with $386,00 Fine in Australian Child Abuse Probe

Quincy Jon, Tech Times 15 October 2023, 04:10 pm

(Photo : JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - This picture shows the new Twitter logo rebranded as X, reflected in smartphone screens, in Paris on July 24, 2023.

The Australian e-Safety Commission has imposed a substantial punishment of A$610,500 (about $386,000) on Elon Musk's social media platform X for failing to comply with an inquiry into anti-child abuse policies.

The penalty was imposed on X, formerly Twitter, for failing to answer the commission's questions in a probe that aimed to find out how quickly the platform responded to allegations of child abuse content and how it identified them, according to Reuters.

The fine on X is minor compared to the $44 billion Elon Musk spent to purchase the platform in October 2022, but it highlights the social media firm's troubles in retaining advertisers amid content moderation issues and the restoration of thousands of banned accounts.

Australian e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant lamented the social media giant's stubbornness, stressing that if the social media owned by Elon Musk is "actually putting people, processes, and technology in place to tackle illegal content at scale and globally," it can answer the regulator's queries right away.

X terminated its Australian headquarters after the tech mogul's takeover, leaving no one in the country to reply to the Australian e-Safety Commission. The social media firm has yet to comment on the issue as of present reporting.

Platform Struggles to Address Child Abuse Content

Australian regulations in 2021 may force internet service providers to disclose their online safety policies to avoid penalties. The regulator can still take the issue to court if X refuses to pay the fine.

In the past, Elon Musk announced that ending child abuse was his top focus. However, when the Australian regulator inquired about child grooming prevention, X responded that not a lot of young people use the platform. The company also asserted that its anti-grooming technology was not adequate to address the problem, as per a report published by NDTV.

In February, Inman Grant, sent Twitter (later renamed X), Google, TikTok, Twitch, and Discord 35 days to answer concerns, starting this extended stalemate. After seven months of correspondence, X failed to give acceptable answers, leaving certain areas blank and responding to other questions inadvertently or incorrectly.

Important issues regarding the platform's reaction times to allegations of child sexual exploitation and the instruments and technology employed to identify such content were not addressed. X also failed to address questions about safety and public policy employees retained following the October 2022 Twitter acquisition of Elon Musk and layoffs.

In a similar incident, the Australian e-Safety Commission also warned Alphabet's Google for failing to provide the information it requested regarding how to handle child abuse content.

X is Feeling the Negative Impact of Its Massive Layoffs

In November, Elon Musk took over as CEO of Twitter, which led to a wave of layoffs that included the termination of the 40-person Australian team and the closing of the regional office. These X layoffs highlighted concerns about the platform's efforts to protect its users from misinformation, hate speech, and child sexual abuse.

According to Financial Review, Julie Inman Grant, who worked at Twitter from 2014 to 2016, corresponded with X's Australian attorneys, the trust and safety team in San Francisco, and the company's only public policy staffer in the Asia-Pacific area, headquartered in Singapore.

Last week, European Commissioner Thierry Breton warned Elon Musk that X was disseminating unlawful content and disinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict and called for immediate action.