Australia fines Musk’s X $385,000 for failure to provide information on child abuse content

Australian regulators have fined Elon Musk’s social media platform X, rebranded from Twitter,$385,000 (A$610,500) as it failed to cooperate with a probe into anti-child abuse practices after not providing information about its efforts to combat child exploitation.

Australian regulators about X

Earlier this year, multiple tech giants and social media companies, including X and Google, were sent legal notices by Australian regulators asking them to detail their measures for detecting and removing child sexual abuse material.

According to Australia’s eSafety commissioner, some companies responded to reports of abuse within minutes, while others tookhours. “Companies can make empty statements like ‘Child exploitation is our top priority,’ so what we’re saying is show us,” Julie Inman Grant said during an interview.

Inman Grant, who was a public policy director for X until 2016, also said that the “only reason” that she saw for failing to answer important questions about illegal content and conduct happening on platforms would be to not have them.

After taking over the social media platform, Musk said in a post that “removing child exploitation is priority #1”.

However, when asked about how the social media platform prevented child grooming on the platform, X told Australian regulators that it was “not a service used by large numbers of young people.”

Australian regulators were also told by Xthat the available anti-grooming technology was “not of sufficient capability or accuracy to be deployed on Twitter”.

The company also told the Australian regulators, that it did not use tools to detect the material in private messages because “the technology is still in development”.

Google’s case

Google also came under scrutinyin this context but was let off with a warning after the search engine giant’s responses to some questions were found to be “generic”, said the Inman Grant.

However, Google said that it cooperated with the regulator and found the warning disappointing.

“We remain committed to these efforts and collaborating constructively and in good faith with the e-Safety Commissioner, government and industry on the shared goal of keeping Australians safer online,” said Google’s director of government affairs and public policy for Australia, Lucinda Longcroft, as quoted by Reuters.

(With inputs from agencies)

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