Australia has fined X, previously known as Twitter, over its failure to provide information related to child abuse content. X is being investigated under the country’s Online Safety Act and has become the first social media company to be penalised under the law.
Australia’s eSafety commissioner has imposed a fine of $610,500 on X for not cooperating with the authorities in the probe into the platform’s practices to tackle online child abuse. The investigation, which focuses on basic online safety measures of leading social media platforms, required X to respond to questions regarding its management of illegal material.
X failed, however, to provide details to the regulator on how the company manages and combats insensitive and potentially harmful content. The probe specifically required X to disclose the time window for responding to reports of child abuse content and its mechanisms for the detection of such material.
Despite openly ignoring the questions, X still has two options: Pay the fine within 28 days or provide information on how child abuse material is tackled by the platform. X has also received an infringement notice.
Besides X, the probe under the Online Safety Act targets TikTok, Google, Discord and Twitch, which were issued notices in February. Earlier, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Omegle, and Snap were brought under the scrutiny as part of the investigation.
Last week, a report was released on tech companies’ compliance with the notices, highlighting leading social media companies’ inadequate and deficient responses to how they detect and take down child abuse material.
The report placed particular emphasis on Google’s handling of the questions posed by the regulator, which the eSafety commissioner put as generic. Google has since received a formal warning.
“We remain committed to these efforts and collaborating constructively and in good faith with the eSafety Commissioner, government and industry on the shared goal of keeping Australians safer online,” Google said in response to the warning.
According to reports, X’s detection of child abuse material has fallen to 75 per cent from 95 per cent under Elon Musk’s management. The billionaire, who acquired X in October last year for $44 billion, highlighted countering child abuse on X as one of his foremost priorities.
Musk has also repeatedly claimed that harmful material such as hate speech on X has declined significantly since his takeover, but research from academic institutions and nonprofit organisations suggest otherwise. The billionaire has even sued a nonprofit that reported on rising hate on X, accusing it of driving away advertisers from the platform.
