Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter, faces an A$610,500 fine for non-cooperation in an anti-child abuse probe, contradicting Musk's public commitment to prioritizing child protection.

Highlights:

• Empty Talk Criticized: The eSafety Commission rebukes X for "empty talk" on child exploitation despite Musk's prioritization claims.
• Serious Noncompliance: X's failure to respond seriously to key questions raises concerns, including response times to child exploitation reports.
• Workforce Cuts and Revenue Decline: X confirms an 80% global workforce cut, and continuous revenue decline since Musk's $44bn acquisition last year.

The regulator has been empowered by Australian laws to compel internet companies to be transparent about their online safety measures practiced in Australia. There are very important questions concerning the severity of X’s not cooperating with the investigation. There are some serious holes here in the company’s child protection efforts, including failing to respond to key questions, especially about response times to reports of child sex exploitation and detection of such content in live streams.

However, this regulatory problem is only one of X’s struggles. It was not a pleasant time for Twitter following a 75% global workforce cut and continued decline in income, mostly in the past year after Musk bought it for USD 44 billion.

Criticisms have also been raised following the deactivation of a function that enabled users to report election-related inaccuracies. However, this decision became even more controversial when it was made literally a few days before an important Australian referendum for the rights of the Native Australians.

This is a combined atmosphere of heightened review and challenge for social media sites, despite being in possession of high-profile people. While X has faced these recent setbacks, the pressing question remains: What is the company going to do about these issues and what lies ahead in the quagmire of online safety, privacy, security, and compliance? BBC has asked X about these sophisticated questions.