Australian judge fines X $465,000 for online safety breach after 3-year court battle

An Australian judge has fined X Corp. $465,000 for failing to provide information to an online safety watchdog about how it tackled child sexual exploitation content

MELBOURNE, Australia -- An Australian judge fined X Corp. 650,000 Australian dollars ($465,000) on Thursday for failing to provide information to an online safety watchdog in 2023 about how it tackled child sexual exploitation content.

Federal Court Justice Michael Wheelahan also ordered the Texas-based social media giant to pay AU$100,000 ($71,000) of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant’s court costs within 45 days.

The ruling ends a three-year legal battle in which X had argued it was not obliged to answer eSafety’s questions.

X admitted it contravened Australia’s Online Safety Act by failing to provide a report that fully answered questions posed by eSafety in a transparency notice issued on Feb. 22, 2023, the agency’s lawyer Christopher Tran said. X had to provide the answers by March 29 that year.

X’s lawyer Perry Herzfeld told the judge eSafety did not allege that the contravening conduct continued after May 5, 2023.

“That was a period of change and transition for the company,” Herzfeld said, in a reference to Elon Musk taking over.

eSafety had sent the notice to Twitter Inc., which merged with X in March 2023.

Tran said both X and eSafety agreed the fine was appropriate.

“It’s appropriate because X Corp. is obviously a large company and a large figure is needed to ensure that a contravention is not treated as a cost of doing business,” Tran said.

In July last year, the full Federal Court ruled that X was required to respond to eSafety’s transparency notice. That ruling upheld a judge’s decision in October 2024.

Inman Grant, a former Twitter employee, said meaningful transparency was critical to holding technology companies to account.

“In early 2023, we asked some of the world’s biggest technology companies, including Twitter, to report on steps they were taking to comply with the Australian Basic Online Safety Expectations in relation to the proliferation of child sexual exploitation and abuse materials on their platforms,” Inman Grant said in a statement.

“This is not only a key part of our work as Australia’s online safety regulator, it also provides the Australian public with important information about how these companies are tackling the worst-of-the-worst content on their platforms,” she added.

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.