Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) has launched legal action in Australia’s Federal Court, seeking a declaration that a new safety standard for harmful online content enforced by the country’s eSafety Commissioner does not apply to it or other social media platforms.

X Corp filed the application on Wednesday, seeking a declaration from eSafety that it need not abide by the Relevant Electronic Services Standard (RES Standard), which contains rules for dealing with content containing child sexual exploitation, violence, drugs, and pro-terror material.

Lawyers for X Corp have argued eSafety should declare the RES Standard — which came into effect in December 2024 but will not be enforced for six months — either does not apply to X or is itself invalid, according to court documents seen by Information Age.

X Corp’s representatives argued social media platforms have been unfairly caught up in the regulation because such services usually allow users to send direct messages to each other, and should instead be allowed to continue complying with an earlier industry code which also deals with similar harmful content.

The existence of X Corp’s application with the New South Wales registry of the Federal Court was first confirmed by Comms Day.

The office of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant — who worked for Twitter between 2014 and 2016 — said it was aware X had requested a judicial review of whether it was required to comply with the RES Standard.

“We are assessing the documents filed and will consider next steps accordingly,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

“The RES Standard requires online platforms to take meaningful action to tackle the worst of the worst online content, including child sexual exploitation and abuse material.

“eSafety is prioritising its efforts on ensuring all platforms and services meet their obligations under the Online Safety Act to address harmful and high impact content to keep Australians safe online.”

X Corp's legal action centres around concerns from social media companies which have been told to transition their compliance from industry codes such as the Social Media Services Online Safety Code (SMS Code) to the RES Standard, which eSafety said it put in place because industry codes did not “provide appropriate community safeguards” from the most harmful online content.

In a letter to the eSafety Commissioner’s office on 10 December 2024, the Australian legal firm representing X Corp, Thomson Geer, expressed its client’s concern about the RES Standard, and flagged X Corp would potentially “take legal action".

The eSafety Commissioner’s office replied to the law firm on 12 December 2024 and said X Corp needed to comply with RES Standard — under which companies can face penalties of up to $49.5 million for breaches — and not the SMS Code.

Thomson Geer did not comment on the case when contacted, while X does not have a dedicated media team.

A date for a court hearing is yet to be set.

New standard ‘more onerous’, platforms argue

Australia's Digital Industry Group Inc. (DIGI), which counts the likes of X, Meta, TikTok, and Snap among its members, told eSafety in February and March 2025 that its members had raised "considerable concern” about the RES Standard, including an alleged “lack of consultation” from eSafety, according to emails seen by Information Age.

DIGI’s director of policy, research, and regulatory affairs, Dr Jennifer Duxbury, told Inman Grant the RES Standard created “an additional regulatory burden for those providers of social media services which eSafety considers must transition from the [SMS] Code to the [RES] Standard”, including using “additional resources” to assess their risks and update compliance approaches.

Duxbury said some aspects of the RES Standard were “more onerous”, “more prescriptive”, and imposed “more stringent procedural requirements” than the SMS Code.

She also argued obligations for companies to conduct risk assessments and notify the Commissioner of changes to their platform’s features were “significantly more burdensome”.


The office of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant says it is 'assessing the documents filed' by X Corp. Image: eSafety Commissioner / Supplied

In an email to Duxbury on 6 February, Inman Grant said eSafety “do not consider there will be significant addition regulatory burden to industry overall”, and argued some requirements of the RES Standard were “less onerous than the SMS Code”.

She also said eSafety had “consulted widely on the draft RES Standard”.

The Commissioner's office has previously argued “the minimum compliance measures in the SMS Code are largely applicable to the RES Standard”.

As platforms adjust to the RES Standard, eSafety has said it will not enforce the standard “other than in exceptional circumstances” until 16 June 2025 — six months after it took effect.

Child safety group warns against ‘loopholes’

Responding to news of X Corp’s court action, the Australian arm of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC Australia) said it hoped children would “never become collateral in debates over platform governance”.

“Global platforms have a responsibility to act swiftly when content depicts abuse or violence, especially when it involves children,” the organisation said in a statement.

“Online safety should not be compromised by jurisdictional loopholes.

“… Platforms have an international moral responsibility to uphold responsible freedom of expression — not enable criminal expression that violates the rights of the many to protect the rights of the few.”

When eSafety first registered the RES Standard in June 2024, Inman Grant said it would help protect Australians from “the most abhorrent and harmful online material imaginable”.

“We know cloud-based file and photo storage services as well as many messaging services serve as a free haven for paedophiles to host, store and distribute child sexual exploitation material and companies who own and operate them must take responsibility for this misuse and act to disrupt and deter it,” she said at the time.

In an annual report submitted to eSafety in February 2025, X Corp said it suspended around 4.4 million accounts over child sexual exploitation material and removed roughly 4.3 million posts containing violent content between 16 December 2023 and 15 December 2024.

Previous tussles between X and eSafety

X Corp’s request for a judicial review is the latest in a series of legal disagreements between Australia's eSafety Commissioner and the company Musk purchased in April 2022 for around $US44 billion.

The Commissioner ordered X remove graphic footage of the stabbing of a Sydney bishop in April 2024, which sparked a war of words between Musk, the Commissioner, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who called Musk an “arrogant billionaire” over X’s fight against the order.

While X initially hid the content from Australian users, the Commissioner won a two-day injunction which forced the company to hide the material from users worldwide.

X then scored a legal win in May 2024 when the Federal Court refused to extend the temporary order, and eSafety dropped its federal suit against the company the following month.

In a separate case, the Commissioner fined X more than $600,000 in February 2023 for failing to answer questions about how it handled harmful content on its platform, including child abuse material.

X Corp has appealed that fine and has argued the company did not technically exist — even though Twitter did — when the Commissioner issued reporting notices over such content.

A Federal Court judge ruled in October 2024 that the creation of X Corp and Twitter’s name change did not mean X was no longer responsible for the platform.

However, X Corp has reportedly continued to argue in court that the Commissioner should have issued a new notice to X.

Musk has also previously described the Australian government as “fascists” over proposed laws against the spread of misinformation.