Australian court fines Elon Musk's X $418,000 in child abuse case

Elon Musk’s social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, has been fined A$610,500 (around $418,000) by an Australian court over a child abuse case.

According to Reuters, the Federal Court of Australia upheld this fine, linked to X's failure to provide requested information about its efforts to tackle child sexual exploitation material on its platform.

X challenged the penalty, arguing it was exempt from responding to regulatory requests made prior to a corporate restructuring in 2022 when Musk privatized Twitter and rebranded it under X Corp. However, the court rejected this defense, stressing that it could have opened a loophole for foreign companies to bypass legal obligations after mergers or acquisitions.

The ruling is part of an ongoing dispute between Musk’s platform and Australia’s eSafety Office, which oversees online content.

X has also faced additional civil actions for its non-compliance with certain regulatory requests, with Australian officials underscoring the importance of corporate accountability in protecting users from harmful online content, especially involving child exploitation.

This is not the first instance of conflict between X and the Australian government.

Earlier this year, the eSafety Commissioner demanded the removal of a video on X depicting an attack on a bishop during a sermon. X resisted, arguing that a single country’s regulator should not control globally visible content, a stance Musk defended as opposition to censorship.

Recently, Musk further criticized the Australian government’s proposal to combat misinformation, labeling it "fascist" after officials introduced potential fines of up to 5 percent of global revenue for platforms that fail to curb misinformation. Under this legislation, tech companies would need to implement codes of conduct to limit the spread of false or misleading information, with regulators stepping in if companies fail to meet these standards.