An Australian safety watchdog has fined X/Twitter with 610,000 Australian dollars ($385,000) for failing to explain how the platform tackled child sexual exploitation, abuse, and extortion content.
According to a report by the Associated Press, Australia’s eSafety Commission issued a legal transparency notice to social platforms asking what actions they were taking to address the proliferation of child sexual exploitation, sexual extortion, and sexual abuse content and livestreaming. The commission said both Google and X failed to adequately respond to the questioning.
According to the commission, X was the worst offender, providing no answers to important questions like how many staff remained on the trust and safety team that worked on preventing harmful and illegal content since Elon Musk took over.
“I think there’s a degree of defiance there,” said Julie Inman Grant, eSafety Commissioner.
After Musk took over Twitter, he cut costs and shed thousands of jobs. “If you’ve got a basic H.R. (human resources) system or payroll, you’ll know how many people are on each team,” Inman Grant said.
The commission sent a formal warning to Google for providing generic responses to specific questions.
Lucinda Longcroft, Google regional director said in a statement that the company has invested in the fight to stop the spread of child abuse material.
Though X could challenge the fine, the Australian Federal Court could impose a fine of up to AU$780,00 ($493,402) per day since the commission found the platform had not complied with the transparency notice since March.