X doesn’t mark the spot when it comes to Twitter fine

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X doesn’t mark the spot when it comes to

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fine

Lawyers for Elon Musk’s X Corp have argued it should not have to pay a $610,500 penalty from Australia’s eSafety Commission as the fine was issued to

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, which no longer exists.

The company, represented by Sydney barrister Bret Walker SC, outlined its case in the Melbourne Federal Court on Monday in the first of a two-day sitting into the issue.

The eSafety Commission issued the financial penalty to

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in October last year, alleging the social network ******* to adequately respond to questions about how it tackled harmful content on its platform, including child ******* ****** material.

The fine was the first issued to a digital platform under Australia’s Online Safety Act, and could attract retrospective daily fines of $780,000 for each day the company did not respond.

But Mr Walker told Justice Michael Wheelahan the fine had been issued to

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which had “ceased to exist” after March 15, 2023 when X Corp merged with

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in the US state of Nevada.

“After all the arguments have been trotted through, that will indeed suffice for the proposition concerning the possible application of Section 57 to our client who is X, not

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,” he said.

“The parties are in lively dispute about what happens upon what I’ll call the merger.”

Mr Musk registered X Corp in Nevada in early March 2023 and court documents later indicated

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had “merged into X Corp and no longer exists as a separate entity”.

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, which Mr Musk took over in October 2022, was rebranded as X in July 2023.

The fine from Australia’s eSafety Commission came after it issued non-periodic reporting notices to several online firms, including

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, TikTok,

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and Discord, in February last year.

Questions posed to the companies asked how they were meeting basic online safety expectations, including attempts to stop the spread of child ******* exploitation and ****** material on their platforms.

“

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******* to provide any response to the question, such as by leaving the boxes entirely blank,” the eSafety Commission said in a report.

“In other instances,

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provided a response that was otherwise incomplete and/or inaccurate.”

ESafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant issued the fine to

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in October and also gave a formal warning to

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for “not adequately answering specific questions”.

Justice Wheelahan has adjourned the case until Tuesday, when expert witnesses are expected to appear before the court.

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#doesnt #mark #spot #

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#fine

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