Elon Musk's X loses Australia child protection compliance lawsuit

By Byron Kaye

SYDNEY, May 21 (Reuters) - ‌An Australian ​court upheld ​a regulator's fine against Elon Musk's social media company X Corp after it admitted violating the law by failing to supply ‌information about its online child protection measures, ending a nearly ⁠three-year dispute.

After the eSafety regulator, a frequent target of online attacks by Musk, fined the ‌company in October 2023 for what ‌it called an inadequate response to a standard request for information about anti-child exploitation processes, the company resolved the dispute on Thursday by admitting ​wrongdoing.

"The respondent admits that it contravened the Act," said Christopher Tran, a lawyer for the eSafety Commissioner, referring to Australia's Online Safety Act, ⁠in a Federal Court hearing.

"There was ongoing noncompliance for some 38 days."

The resolution ends a legal battle which ​began when the regulator fined the company formerly called Twitter A$610,500 ($437,000) over its answers to some 25 questions. X Corp ​initially sought to overturn the penalty on ‌grounds that the company had changed its name since being acquired by Musk for $44 billion in 2022.

The regulator later took a separate ⁠legal action to recover the fine. On Thursday, Judge Michael Wheelahan raised the payout to A$650,000 and ordered X to pay another A$100,000 to cover some of the ⁠regulator's legal costs.

The resolution ties up a loose end for the company which earlier this ​year was folded into Musk's sprawling technology conglomerate SpaceX ahead of a planned trillion-dollar initial public offering within weeks.

X's lawyer Perry Herzfeld said the dispute boiled down to "historic issues relating ‌to the timeliness of provision of information".

The contravening conduct took place during a "period of change and transition for the ‌company", he told the court.

Tran, for eSafety, acknowledged there was no loss resulting from ⁠X's actions but said that "not ‌providing information when requested ​by a regulator impedes a regulator when doing her work".

($1 = 1.3986 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Kim Coghill and ‌Lincoln Feast.)

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