Elon Musk's X fined for not complying with Australia's child protection laws

Elon Musk's X fined for not complying with Australia's child protection laws11 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleHelen LivingstoneSydneyGettyAn Australian court has fined Elon Musk's X over a failure to comply with online child safety regulations.An Australian court has upheld a fine against Elon Musk's X Corp after it admitted to failing to comply with child safety measures, resolving a three-year legal battle.The country's internet regulator eSafety had first issued the fine in 2023, after the social media giant did not respond adequately to a request to supply information on how it was tackling the exploitation of children online.But X had argued that it did not have to comply with the request because it had come before Twitter, as it was then known, merged with X Corp and that Twitter was no longer a company.On Thursday it admitted wrongdoing and has been ordered to pay a A$650,000 ($463,000, £345,000) fine.Justice Michael Wheelahan raised the initial fine of A$610,00 and also ordered the US company to pay A$100,000 towards the regulator's legal costs."A penalty near the maximum is appropriate in the case of the respondent, which is a substantial corporation so that it operates as a real deterrent and is not simply a cost of doing business," Wheelahan said.Australia's e-regulator has previously clashed with X, including over its world-leading ban on social media for under-16s and its refusal to remove videos of a stabbing that took place in a Sydney church.eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told the BBC in 2024 she had received death threats and her children were doxxed after Musk called her the "censorship commissar" in a post to his 196 million followers."Meaningful transparency is critical to holding technology companies to account," Grant said in a statement on Thursday.The request for information on how the social media platform was tackling the spread of child sexual abuse con...