An Australian court has upheld an order requiring Elon Musk’s company, X, to pay a fine of 610,500 Australian dollars ($418,000) for failing to cooperate with a regulator’s request for information about anti-child-abuse practices. X had challenged the fine, but the Federal Court of Australia ruled that it was obliged to respond to a notice from the eSafety Commissioner, an internet safety regulator, seeking information about steps to address child sexual exploitation material on the social media platform. Musk took X, then called Twitter, private in 2022.
The company had argued that it was not bound to respond to the notice in early 2023 because it was folded into a new Musk-controlled corporate entity, thereby removing liability.
Court fines Musk’s X for noncompliance
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement following the verdict, “Had X Corp.’s argument been accepted by the court, it could have set the concerning precedent that a foreign company’s merger with another foreign company might enable it to avoid regulatory obligations in Australia.”
eSafety has also started civil proceedings against X because of its noncompliance.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. This is not the first conflict between Musk and the Australian internet safety regulator. Earlier this year, the eSafety Commissioner had shown issues with the platform, but ultimately withdrew its case after facing opposition from X.
Musk described the regulatory efforts as censorship and warned that such rules could set a global precedent.
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