Australia’s eSafety commissioner, herself a former Twitter executive, informed her former employer that it faces daily fines of nearly half a million dollars (US) per day if it doesn’t rein in the hate speech and violent rhetoric on the platform, the Washington Post reports.
Julie Inman Grant cited Australia’s 2021 online safety law, a first in the world, in her notice to Twitter. In a statement, She noted that it received more reports of hate speech and targeted attacks on Twitter than any other platform in the past 12 months, with the incidence of such attacks increasing significantly after Elon Musk took control. Inman Grant also connected Twitter’s slashing of its workforce by 80% to the increase in hate speech on the platform, noting that two of the first departments decimated at the company were in the trust and safety teams.