Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner fined Elon Musk’s company $386,000.
They did this because Musk’s company couldn’t explain how they deal with child sexual abuse on their platform and how they remove such content.
Google also got a warning from Australia’s E-Safety Commissioner about this.
Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner, said that online child sexual exploitation is becoming a bigger issue around the world, including Australia.
She believes that tech companies have a moral duty to keep children safe from it.
We need action not empty talk
Julie Inman Grant mentioned that Twitter has been claiming that preventing child sexual abuse is the company’s top priority, but we haven’t witnessed any real action from the company.
She has requested Twitter to provide specific details on this matter within 28 days.
If the company cannot provide the required information, it will need to pay the fine within 28 days.
These companies, including WhatsApp, Microsoft, and Apple, are also part of the investigation
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant mentioned that in our initial report, companies like Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Skype, Snap, WhatsApp, and Omegle are also not taking this issue seriously, and there are some issues in all the reports. These companies need to take prompt action.
Google was unable to provide correct answers to the questions
Google and Twitter didn’t follow the notice from eSafety as they provided incorrect answers to many questions.
The Australian e-Safety Commissioner warned Google specifically for responding with general answers instead of addressing the important questions and for giving general responses instead of providing the specific information requested.
The report also pointed out that it’s surprising that Google isn’t using its own technology to identify known child sexual abuse videos on services like Gmail, Chat, and Messages.
