MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) 鈥� An Australian judge fined 650,000 Australian dollars ($465,000) on Thursday for failing to provide information to an online safety watchdog in 2023 about how it tackled child sexual exploitation content.
Federal Court Justice Michael Wheelahan also ordered the Texas-based social media giant to pay AU$100,000 ($71,000) of Commissioner Julie Inman Grant鈥檚 court costs within 45 days.
The ruling ends a three-year legal battle in which X had argued it was not obliged to answer eSafety鈥檚 questions.
X admitted it contravened Australia鈥檚 Online Safety Act by failing to provide a report that fully answered questions posed by in a transparency notice issued on Feb. 22, 2023, the agency鈥檚 lawyer Christopher Tran said. X had to provide the answers by March 29 that year.
X鈥檚 lawyer Perry Herzfeld told the judge eSafety did not allege that the contravening conduct continued after May 5, 2023.
鈥淭hat was a period of change and transition for the company,鈥� Herzfeld said, in a reference to Elon Musk taking over.
eSafety had sent the notice to Inc., which merged with X in March 2023.
Tran said both X and eSafety agreed the fine was appropriate.
鈥淚t鈥檚 appropriate because X Corp. is obviously a large company and a large figure is needed to ensure that a contravention is not treated as a cost of doing business,鈥� Tran said.
In July last year, the ruled that X was required to respond to eSafety鈥檚 transparency notice. That ruling upheld a judge鈥檚 decision in October 2024.
Inman Grant, a former Twitter employee, said meaningful transparency was critical to holding technology companies to account.
鈥淚n early 2023, we asked some of the world鈥檚 biggest technology companies, including Twitter, to report on steps they were taking to comply with the Australian Basic Online Safety Expectations in relation to the proliferation of child sexual exploitation and abuse materials on their platforms,鈥� Inman Grant said in a statement.
鈥淭his is not only a key part of our work as Australia鈥檚 online safety regulator, it also provides the Australian public with important information about how these companies are tackling the worst-of-the-worst content on their platforms,鈥� she added.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
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