A Texas-based social media giant has been ordered to pay AU$650,000 ($465,000) after a three-year legal battle over its refusal to answer questions about child sexual exploitation on its platform, marking a significant victory for Australia's online safety regulator in holding tech companies accountable.
Federal Court Justice Michael Wheelahan issued the fine Thursday against X Corp. for breaching Australia's Online Safety Act by failing to provide a complete transparency report to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant. The company was also ordered to pay AU$100,000 ($71,000) of the commissioner's court costs within 45 days.
The case centered on a transparency notice eSafety issued on Feb. 22, 2023, requiring X to answer detailed questions about how it was tackling child sexual exploitation content. X had until March 29, 2023, to respond but provided incomplete information, according to the agency's lawyer Christopher Tran.
The Accountability Gap
X's resistance to providing transparency data highlights a broader challenge facing regulators worldwide: ensuring that powerful technology platforms answer basic questions about how they protect vulnerable users. For three years, X argued it was not obliged to answer eSafety's questions—a position the courts ultimately rejected.
Tran told the court the fine was necessary to prevent corporations from treating regulatory violations as a mere cost of business. "It's appropriate because X Corp. is obviously a large company and a large figure is needed to ensure that a contravention is not treated as a cost of doing business," he said.
The contravening conduct continued until May 5, 2023, according to X's own admissions. The company's lawyer Perry Herzfeld attributed the delay to "a period of change and transition" following Elon Musk's takeover of the platform.
eSafety had originally sent the transparency notice to Twitter Inc., which merged with X in March 2023. The regulatory request was part of a broader effort by Australia's online safety watchdog to assess how major technology companies were complying with the country's Basic Online Safety Expectations, particularly regarding child sexual exploitation and abuse materials.
Why Public Transparency Matters
Inman Grant, a former Twitter employee, emphasized that transparency requirements serve a critical democratic function. "Meaningful transparency is critical to holding technology companies to account," she stated. In early 2023, she explained the stakes: "We asked some of the world's biggest technology companies, including Twitter, to report on steps they were taking to comply with the Australian Basic Online Safety Expectations in relation to the proliferation of child sexual exploitation and abuse materials on their platforms."
She continued: "This is not only a key part of our work as Australia's online safety regulator, it also provides the Australian public with important information about how these companies are tackling the worst-of-the-worst content on their platforms."
The ruling represents the culmination of a legal process that saw a judge's decision upheld in October 2024, followed by confirmation from the full Federal Court in July 2025. Both X and eSafety agreed the fine was appropriate, according to court records.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Why This Matters:
This case demonstrates the critical importance of regulatory oversight in protecting children online and ensuring corporate accountability. When technology platforms refuse to answer basic questions about how they handle child exploitation content, the public loses essential information about whether these companies are meeting their safety obligations. The three-year legal battle reveals how corporations can use litigation to delay accountability—a strategy that only succeeds if regulators have sufficient resources and political backing to persist. The fine sends a message that transparency is not optional for companies operating in Australia, but it also underscores a broader structural challenge: regulators across democracies must have real enforcement power and adequate funding to hold multinational tech companies accountable. Without meaningful transparency requirements backed by enforceable penalties, platforms can operate with minimal public scrutiny over how they address the most harmful content affecting society's most vulnerable members.