Elon Musk’s social media platform X has been hit with a fine in Australia after regulators slated the site for not being open on how it tackles content linked to child abuse.
Australia’s eSafety Commission dealt a AU$610,500 (£317,610) fine on Monday over a lack of transparency on X’s part and what it described as “generic responses to specific questions”.
X - formerly known as Twitter - failed to respond to several questions about how it was tackling child sexual exploitation when quizzed earlier this year, according to the commission.
This stretched to questions relating to the size of X’s trust and safety team since Musk took over late last year, with his takeover bringing sweeping staff cuts across the business.
“I think there’s a degree of defiance there,” commissioner Inman Grant said. “If you’ve got a basic human resources system or payroll, you’ll know how many people are on each team.”
X has repeatedly been scrutinised over its stance on content moderation since Musk bought the site.
Many companies have stopped advertising on X as a result, dealing a blow to the firm’s revenues.
Just last week, X faced calls from the European Union to address concerns that misinformation relating to the war in Israel was circulating the site, with commissioner Thierry Breton threatening fines if Musk did not respond.