Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has imposed a fine of 610,500 Australian dollars (over $380,000) on Elon Musk‘s Twitter-run X for failing to disclose information regarding its measures to detect, remove, and prevent child sexual abuse material. Google has also received a formal warning from the eSafety Commissioner.

In a statement, Julie Inman Grant emphasized the alarming growth of online child sexual exploitation, both in Australia and globally, and called upon technology companies to bear a moral responsibility in safeguarding children from sexual exploitation and abuse within their services, IANS reported from Sydney.

While Twitter/X has publicly stated that addressing child sexual exploitation is their top priority, the eSafety Commissioner stressed the importance of translating words into concrete actions.

Twitter/X has been given 28 days to respond to or pay the eSafety office’s fine.

Julie Inman Grant pointed out that a previous report revealed deficiencies in how various tech companies, including Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Skype, Snap, WhatsApp, and Omegle, were tackling the issue of child sexual exploitation. The recent report identified similar gaps in the efforts of Twitter/X and Google to address this problem and the growing issue of sexual extortion.

Twitter/X’s non-compliance was deemed particularly severe, as they failed to respond to certain questions and left sections entirely blank in their notices.

In the case of Google, the company received a formal warning for providing generic responses to specific questions and offering aggregated information in response to inquiries about specific services. The report also noted that Google was not utilizing its technology to detect known child sexual exploitation videos in some of its services.

Julie Inman Grant reiterated the importance of technology companies taking concrete steps to address the issue of child sexual exploitation and demanded more significant efforts from all relevant companies.

The report highlighted that some platforms, including YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch, are taking measures to detect child sexual exploitation in livestreams. However, Discord cited prohibitive costs as a reason for not addressing the issue in their services, and Twitter/X failed to provide the required information.

The eSafety Commissioner also warned that further actions might be considered if Twitter does not pay the infringement notice, underscoring the necessity for tangible action in safeguarding children from online exploitation.