Australia issued a fine of $610,500 Australian dollars ($386,000) on Monday against X ,formerly known as Twitter, for “falling short†in disclosing information on how it tackles child sex abuse content.
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"It might be difficult for most of us to confront, but the world is facing an unprecedented explosion in online child sexual exploitation and abuse and it’s getting worse with every passing day," Julie Inman Grant, eSafety Commissioner, wrote in her report.
"In February, I asked Twitter (subsequently known as X), TikTok, Google (including YouTube), Discord and Twitch what steps they are taking to tackle these crimes against children playing out on their services.
"Their answers revealed similar troubling shortfalls and inconsistencies.
"For example, we found that while YouTube, TikTok and Twitch are taking steps to detect child abuse in livestreams, Discord is not, saying that implementing the required tools is ‘prohibitively expensive’ for its service.
"TikTok and Twitch use language analysis technology to detect CSEA activity such as sexual extortion across all parts of their services whereas Discord does not use any detection tools at all. Twitter uses tools on public content, but not on direct messages. Google uses tools on YouTube, but not on Chat, Gmail, Meet and Messages.
"Google and Discord are not blocking links to known child sexual exploitation material, despite the availability of databases from expert organisations like the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation. Google only blocks links on its search service.  
YouTube, TikTok and Twitch are using technology to detect grooming, whereas Twitter/X, Discord and other Google services including Meet, Chat, Gmail, Messages, are not. 
"Google is also not using its own technology to detect known child sexual exploitation videos on some of its services – Gmail, Chat and Messages. 
"There was significant variation in the languages covered by content moderators. Google said it covers at least 71 languages and TikTok 73. In comparison Twitter said it covered only 12 languages, Twitch reported 24 and Discord report 29.
"This means that some of the top 5 non-English languages spoken at home in Australia are not by default covered by Twitter, Discord or Twitch moderators. This is particularly important for harms like grooming, violent extremism or hate speech which can require context and understanding of cultural nuances to identify. 
"We also found wide variations in the response times to user reports of child abuse – TikTok says it responds within 5 minutes for public content, Twitch takes 8 minutes, while Discord takes 13 hours for direct messages. Twitter/X and Google did not provide the information required.
"Google failed to comply by giving generic or aggregated information across multiple services where information regarding specific services was required. Google has been given a Formal Warning to deter it from future non-compliance.
eSafety found that Twitter/X’s non-compliance was more serious. For some questions, Twitter/X failed to provide any response leaving some boxes entirely blank. In other instances, Twitter provided a response that was otherwise incomplete or inaccurate.
It’s for this reason that Twitter/X has been issued with an infringement notice of $610,500. The company now has 28 days to either request a withdrawal stating valid reasons as to why, or pay up.
"If in the event Twitter/X does not pay, eSafety has the option to seek a civil penalty through the courts." ■