In a recent development, an Australian regulatory body has imposed a hefty fine of A$610,500 ($386,000) on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, which is associated with entrepreneur Elon Musk. This penalty has been issued due to X's refusal to cooperate with an investigation into its anti-child abuse practices. This incident comes at a time when X has been grappling with a dwindling advertiser base, amid allegations of insufficient content moderation.
The e-Safety Commission has taken this stern action against X, asserting that the platform failed to provide adequate responses to inquiries regarding its response times to reports of child abuse material and the methods employed for its detection.
While the fine may appear relatively modest when compared to the staggering $44 billion Musk disbursed to acquire the platform in October 2022, it nonetheless delivers a substantial blow to X's reputation. The platform has been experiencing a continuous decline in revenue as advertisers scale back their spending on a platform that has significantly curtailed content moderation and reinstated thousands of banned accounts.
Notably, the European Union has also recently launched an investigation into X for potential violations of its new tech regulations. This action followed allegations that X had not done enough to curb the spread of disinformation in connection with Hamas's actions in Israel.
Commissioner Julie Inman Grant expressed her concern, stating, "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." Inman Grant previously served as X's public policy director until 2016.
It's worth mentioning that X shut down its Australian office after Musk's acquisition, leaving no local representative to respond to media queries. A request for comment sent to the San Francisco-based company's media email address remained unanswered at the time of reporting.
Under Australian laws that came into effect in 2021, regulators have the authority to compel internet companies to divulge information about their online safety practices or face fines. Should X choose not to pay the imposed fine, the regulator has the option to take legal action against the company, according to Grant.
Musk had stated, after taking X private, that "removing child exploitation is priority #1." However, the Australian regulator found that X's response to inquiries about preventing child grooming on the platform was far from satisfactory, as X argued that it was "not a service used by large numbers of young people." Furthermore, X asserted that the available anti-grooming technology was "not of sufficient capability or accuracy to be deployed on Twitter."
In addition to the fine imposed on X, the e-Safety Commission has also issued a warning to Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, for not fully complying with requests for information about its handling of child abuse content. Inman Grant described Google's responses to certain questions as "generic." Google expressed disappointment with the warning and claimed to have cooperated with the regulator in good faith.
The regulator categorized X's noncompliance as more severe, particularly due to its failure to answer questions about response times to reports of child abuse, methods employed for detecting child abuse in livestreams, and its staffing numbers for content moderation, safety, and public policy. X confirmed to the regulator that it had reduced its global workforce by 80% and had no public policy staff in Australia, in contrast to two employees before Musk's takeover.
Moreover, X informed the regulator that its proactive detection of child abuse material in public posts had decreased after it went private under Musk's ownership. The company cited the ongoing development of technology as the reason for not using tools to detect such material in private messages.
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