Australia (Commonwealth) _For failing to cooperate with an investigation into anti-child abuse policies, an Australian regulator fined Elon Musk’s social networking platform X A$610,500, dealing a setback to a business that has struggled to retain advertisers amid claims that it is becoming lax in content moderation.
The e-Safety Commission punished Musk’s platform X, which he rebranded from Twitter, for not responding to inquiries about how quickly it addressed accusations of child abuse material on the site and how it found it.
Although modest in comparison to the $44 billion Musk paid for the website in October 2022, the fine is a blow to the company’s reputation because advertisers have been cutting back on their spending on a platform that has stopped most content moderation and allowed thousands of banned accounts to be reactivated.
X was recently accused of failing to control misinformation in regard to Hamas’ attack on Israel, prompting the EU to announce that it was looking into possible violations of its new tech regulations.
It’s really simple to say, according to Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, whether you have the answers to your concerns, are genuinely putting staff, systems, and technology in place to address illegal content on a large scale and globally, and if it is your stated goal.
Inman Grant, who worked as the public policy director for X until 2016, continued, “The only reason I can see to fail to answer significant questions about illegal content and conduct occurring on platforms would be if you don’t have answers.”
After Musk’s purchase, X dissolved its Australian office, thus Reuters was unable to contact a local representative. The media email address for the San Francisco-based business did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Australian regulations that went into force in 2021 give the regulator the power to punish internet businesses who 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.
Musk stated in a statement that “removing child exploitation is priority #1” after turning the company private. The Australian regulator, however, claimed that X claimed the service was “not a service used by large numbers of young people” when questioned about how it prevented child grooming on the platform.
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.
According to Google’s head of government affairs and public policy for Australia, Lucinda Longcroft, “We remain committed to these efforts and to working constructively and in good faith with the e-Safety Commissioner, government, and industry on the shared goal of keeping Australians safer online.”
The regulator claimed that X’s noncompliance was more significant, including the company’s refusal to provide information on how quickly it responded to accusations of child abuse, the procedures it took to identify child abuse in live streams, and the number of staff members it employed for content moderation, safety, and public policy.
The business informed the regulator that it had reduced its employment by 80% internationally and no longer has a public policy team in Australia, down from two before to Musk’s acquisition.
After Musk took the firm private, X reported to the regulator that its proactive detection of child abuse content in public posts decreased. Because “the technology is still in development,” the company informed the regulator that it does not utilize tools to find the content of private conversations.
