Australia’s eSafety Org Launches Civil Penalties against X

The eSafety organisation in Australia’s national government has launched civil penalty proceedings against X (formerly Twitter) after the social media platform failed to share its progress in meeting the country’s guidelines on addressing child sexual exploitation and abuse material.

The online safety office issued a notice to X in February 2023, requesting information about how the platform was meeting the country’s ‘Basic Online Safety Expectations’.

However, “eSafety alleges that X Corp. did not prepare a report in the manner and form specified because it failed to respond or failed to respond truthfully and accurately to certain questions in the notice”, it shared in a new statement.

As a result of this, eSafety gave X Corp. an infringement notice for AUD $610,500 in September 2023. X Corp did not pay this infringement notice, and the social media platform has since sought judicial review regarding these matters.

In September 2023, Australia’s eSafety organisation issued legal notices to X, Google, TikTok, Twitch, and Discord regarding their efforts to tackle the proliferation of child sexual exploitation, sexual extortion and the livestreaming of child sexual abuse.

“We really can’t hope to have any accountability from the online industry in tackling this issue without meaningful transparency which is what these notices are designed to surface”, explained Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, at the time.

“What we are talking about here are serious crimes playing out on these platforms committed by predatory adults against innocent children and the community expects every tech company to be taking meaningful action”, she added.

Read the eSafety office’s full statement about the civil penalties against X here.