By Jeff Horwitz<\/p>\n
(Reuters) -A Canadian civil tribunal has fined Elon Musk\u2019s social media platform X for its refusal to comply with an order to remove a non-consensual intimate image, a decision published last week showed.<\/p>\n
British Columbia\u2019s Civil Resolution Tribunal ruled in an initial decision in March that the posting of a particular picture of a woman, referred to pseudonymously as \u201cTR,\u201d violated British Columbia\u2019s Intimate Image Protection Act.<\/p>\n
The tribunal\u2019s vice chair, Eric Regehr, ordered the image to be taken down and deleted by X, controlled by Tesla founder Musk, and other platforms.<\/p>\n
X did not obey that order, a subsequent tribunal decision imposing administrative penalties states. Rather than removing the image, which was being repeatedly posted by an X user, X chose to geofence it, allowing users outside of Canada to continue viewing and sharing it.<\/p>\n
X\u2019s full arguments to the tribunal are not public record. But according to Regehr\u2019s ruling, the company argued the tribunal lacked the authority to make X \u201crestrict or eliminate the online availability of intimate images outside (British Columbia).\u201d<\/p>\n
Regehr dismissed that argument, noting X\u2019s position would call into question whether British Columbia\u2019s law overstepped the province\u2019s authority under Canada\u2019s constitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no authority to consider constitutional arguments,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe question about X\u2019s compliance is a very simple one. I ordered internet intermediaries, which includes X, to remove the intimate image. X received the order, but it did not remove the intimate image. Instead, it did something less. X did not comply with the protection order.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regehr\u2019s order shielded the woman\u2019s name and biographical details from public disclosure. While Civil Resolution Tribunal decisions are not generally public, he said he chose to publish his order because it was the first levying a penalty against an internet intermediary such as X. He wrote the woman \u201clives in the knowledge that the vast majority of the world\u2019s population can still see the intimate image on X.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tribunal fined X the statutory maximum of C$100,000 ($72,307) and invited the woman to request additional penalties of up to C$5,000 a day in the event that X continues to not comply with the March order. Regehr declined to order X to compensate the woman for her time spent on the dispute, however, citing ongoing issues of generative AI-induced errors in the woman\u2019s submissions to the tribunal.<\/p>\n
Neither X nor a lawyer whose name matched X\u2019s named counsel in the case responded to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
In a statement to Reuters, British Columbia\u2019s Ministry of Attorney General said it was \u201cnot aware of any steps taken by X in response to the ruling in this case or the IIPA in general,\u201d but that it expected the company both to comply and pay validly ordered fines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not anticipate any difficulty in enforcing those laws if needed,\u201d the ministry\u2019s statement said.<\/p>\n
($1 = 1.3830 Canadian dollars)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Jeff Horwitz in San Francisco; Editing by Chris Reese)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jeff Horwitz (Reuters) -A Canadian civil tribunal has fined Elon Musk\u2019s social media platform X for its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[903,49,48,71932,250,71931,71929,71930,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-131741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-british-columbia","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-civil-resolution-tribunal","12":"tag-elon-musk","13":"tag-eric-regehr","14":"tag-intimate-image","15":"tag-intimate-images","16":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}