Elon Musk’s X takes eSafety Commissioner to court after snubbing fine

The group, formerly known as Twitter, launches legal action against the eSafety Commissioner after refusing to pay a large fine for failing to explain how it tackles child exploitation and other issues.

Social media giant X has launched legal action after refusing to pay a $610,500 fine imposed by the eSafety Commissioner, who accused it of failing to tackle child exploitation on the platform.

The US giant, formerly known as Twitter, has filed an application for a judicial review in the Federal Court, with the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, as the respondent.

The case was filed on November 10, which reportedly was the last day X had to respond to the infringement notice from the Commissioner.

A Commissioner spokesperson has said that “further steps” may now be required after Twitter failed to pay the fine.

“Twitter/X was given an Infringement Notice for a sum of $610,500 for failure to comply with the non-periodic reporting notice given to it in February this year,” the spokesperson said.

“Twitter/X has not paid the infringement notice within the allotted time frame, and eSafety is now considering further steps.”

The fine relates to X failing to respond adequately – or at all – to questions around how the platform dealt with the issue of the proliferation of child sexual exploitation, sexual extortion and the livestreaming of child sexual abuse.

X, the Commissioner said last month when issuing the fine, failed to respond to some questions at all, “leaving some sections entirely blank’’.

“In other instances, Twitter/X provided a response that was otherwise incomplete and/or inaccurate,” the Commissioner said.

“Twitter/X did not respond to a number of key questions, including the time it takes the platform to respond to reports of child sexual exploitation; the measures it has in place to detect child sexual exploitation in livestreams; and the tools and technologies it uses to detect child sexual exploitation material.

“The company also failed to adequately answer questions relating to the number of safety and public policy staff still employed at Twitter/X following the October 2022 acquisition and subsequent job cuts.”

Ms Inman Grant said X’s responses were disappointing.

“Twitter/X has stated publicly that tackling child sexual exploitation is the number one priority for the company, but it can’t just be empty talk, we need to see words backed up with tangible action.

“If Twitter/X and Google can’t come up with answers to key questions about how they are tackling child sexual exploitation, they either don’t want to answer for how it might be perceived publicly, or they need better systems to scrutinise their own operations.

“Both scenarios are concerning to us and suggest they are not living up to their responsibilities and the expectations of the Australian community.”

X’s content moderation standards have been under close scrutiny since the platform was taken over by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is a self-described “free speech absolutist”.

The company’s value has dropped from $US44bn when it was acquired by Musk a year ago, to about $US19bn now.

Musk fired more than 80 per cent of X’s staff after taking it over, with the platform facing issues around content moderation and the proliferation of hate speech.

The Australian contacted X for comment, however the company has a policy of not responding to media requests.

“Busy now, please check back later,” X said via an auto-generated email response.