An Australian regulatory authority has imposed a fine of A$610,500 ($386,000) on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, for not cooperating with an investigation into anti-child abuse practices. This is a setback for the company, which has faced challenges in retaining advertisers due to concerns about its content moderation practices.
The e-Safety Commission fined X, the platform Musk rebranded from Twitter. They found that X did not respond to inquiries regarding its response times to reports of child abuse material on the platform and the methods used to detect such content.
While the fine is relatively small compared to the $44 billion Musk paid to acquire the platform in October 2022, it does damage the company’s reputation. X has experienced a consistent decline in revenue as advertisers reduced their spending on the platform, partly because it reduced content moderation and allowed previously banned accounts to return.
The European Union (EU) recently initiated an investigation into X for potential violations of its new tech regulations. This investigation is related to X’s alleged failure to control disinformation concerning Hamas’s attack on Israel.
