The Australian eSafety commissioner has launched legal action against X, previously known as Twitter, for allegedly failing to provide information about how it was tackling online child abuse material.
The commission has accused X of failing to comply with a legal notice, issued in February, which requested information on how the company was “meeting basic online safety expectations in relation to child sexual exploitation and abuse material”.
“Specifically, 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,” an eSafety spokesperson said.
“It is important that X Corp and other providers are deterred from non-compliance with statutory notices.”
In September, the eSafety commission fined X Corp $610,500 for failing to comply with the transparency notice. According to the commission, X did not pay the fine and it subsequently sought a judicial review of the legal notice and the fine.
The eSafety commissioner has now requested that judicial review be heard in tandem with civil penalty proceedings in the federal court to avoid delays to either case.
According to a notice of filing, the eSafety commission admits Twitter/X did provide a response to the legal notice by the 29 March deadline, but accused it of failing to respond “truthfully and accurately to certain questions”.
“X Corp was capable of truthfully and accurately responding to each of the relevant notice questions,” the court filing said. “That is clear from the fact that X Corp later provided the eSafety Commissioner with material additional to that which was in the report.
“There is no apparent reason why that material could not have been provided earlier,” the court filing said.
In October, the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said the proliferation of online child sexual exploitation was a growing problem both in Australia and that technology companies had a moral responsibility to protect children from sexual exploitation and 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,” said Inman Grant.
In May, Inman Grant said it had been a “terrible practice” for Twitter to fail to respond to letters from her office, or that of the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, around the platform’s online safety requirements under Australian law.
While Inman Grant acknowledged the company did ultimately respond to the transparency notice regarding how Twitter was tackling online child abuse material, she said it took almost three months and several extensions from her office.
X was contacted for comment.
