Australian Court Upholds X Penalty in Child Safety Compliance Clash
Sydney-An Australian federal court on Thursday upheld a financial penalty against Elon Musk’s social media platform X after the company admitted breaching the country’s online safety laws by failing to provide timely information about measures targeting child exploitation content, concluding a nearly three-year dispute with the national eSafety regulator.
Lawyers representing X Corp. acknowledged in Federal Court that the company contravened Australia’s Online Safety Act after regulators found the platform had failed to adequately respond to a formal request seeking details on its child protection and anti-exploitation processes.
“The respondent admits that it contravened the Act,” Christopher Tran, counsel for the eSafety Commissioner, told the court, adding that the company remained in noncompliance for 38 days.
The case stemmed from a A$610,500 ($437,000) penalty issued in October 2023 against the company formerly known as Twitter after regulators said it provided insufficient responses to approximately 25 questions concerning its systems for detecting and preventing child exploitation material online.
X initially challenged the fine, arguing the company’s corporate identity had changed following Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner later launched separate proceedings to recover the unpaid penalty.
Federal Court Judge Michael Wheelahan increased the amount payable to A$650,000 and ordered X to pay an additional A$100,000 toward the regulator’s legal costs.
The ruling marks another legal setback for Musk’s platform in Australia, where the billionaire entrepreneur and the eSafety Commissioner have repeatedly clashed over content moderation, online harms and regulatory oversight.
X lawyer Perry Herzfeld described the matter as relating to “historic issues” surrounding the timing of information supplied to authorities during what he characterized as a period of operational transition within the company.
“The contravening conduct took place during a period of change and transition for the company,” Herzfeld said during proceedings.Tran acknowledged the regulator had not identified direct harm resulting from the delayed disclosures but argued that failure to provide information impeded the regulator’s ability to carry out statutory responsibilities under the Online Safety Act.
The dispute also represented one of the remaining unresolved regulatory matters for X following its integration earlier this year into Musk’s broader technology conglomerate, SpaceX, ahead of a planned public offering.
