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Australia’s eSafety commissioner has fined Elon Musk-owned X (formerly Twitter) AUD 610,500, or $380,000, for failing to properly respond to a number of questions about how it tackles the proliferation of child sexual exploitation, sexual extortion and the livestreaming of child sexual abuse the platform.
“Twitter/X has stated publicly that tackling child sexual exploitation is the number 1 priority for the company, but it can’t just be empty talk, we need to see words backed up with tangible action,” Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said. The Elon Musk-owned company now has 28 days to respond to or pay the eSafety office’s fine.
Google also warned
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner also said that Google has been issued a formal warning because the company provided “a number of generic responses to specific questions and providing aggregated information when asked questions about specific services.”
Google said that it is not using its own technology to detect known child sexual exploitation videos on some of its services – Gmail, Chat, Messages – and is not blocking links to such material, “despite the availability of databases from expert organisations like the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation.”
X’s non-compliance serious
However, X’s non-compliance was found to be more serious with the company failing to provide any response to some questions. In other instances, the microblogging platform also provided a response that was incomplete and/or inaccurate.
“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,” Australia’s eSafety Commissioner added.
In February, the country’s eSafety office sent a legal memo to tech companies including X, Google, TikTok, Twitch and Discord. The notices included specific questions for the companies to answer about how they handle child exploitation content.
“Twitter/X has stated publicly that tackling child sexual exploitation is the number 1 priority for the company, but it can’t just be empty talk, we need to see words backed up with tangible action,” Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said. The Elon Musk-owned company now has 28 days to respond to or pay the eSafety office’s fine.
Google also warned
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner also said that Google has been issued a formal warning because the company provided “a number of generic responses to specific questions and providing aggregated information when asked questions about specific services.”
Google said that it is not using its own technology to detect known child sexual exploitation videos on some of its services – Gmail, Chat, Messages – and is not blocking links to such material, “despite the availability of databases from expert organisations like the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation.”
X’s non-compliance serious
However, X’s non-compliance was found to be more serious with the company failing to provide any response to some questions. In other instances, the microblogging platform also provided a response that was incomplete and/or inaccurate.
“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,” Australia’s eSafety Commissioner added.
In February, the country’s eSafety office sent a legal memo to tech companies including X, Google, TikTok, Twitch and Discord. The notices included specific questions for the companies to answer about how they handle child exploitation content.
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