Elon Musk’s X faces Canadian fine for not removing non-consensual intimate images

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition, March 9, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

A Canadian civil tribunal has fined Elon Musk’s 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.

British Columbia’s Civil Resolution Tribunal ruled in an initial decision in March that the posting of a particular picture of a woman, referred to pseudonymously as “TR,” violated British Columbia’s Intimate Image Protection Act.

The tribunal’s vice chair, Eric Regehr, ordered the image to be taken down and deleted by X, controlled by Tesla founder Musk, and other platforms.

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.

X’s full arguments to the tribunal are not public record. But according to Regehr’s ruling, the company argued the tribunal lacked the authority to make X “restrict or eliminate the online availability of intimate images outside (British Columbia).”

Regehr dismissed that argument, noting X’s position would call into question whether British Columbia’s law overstepped the province’s authority under Canada’s constitution.

“I have no authority to consider constitutional arguments,” he wrote. “The question about X’s 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.”

Regehr’s order shielded the woman’s 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 “lives in the knowledge that the vast majority of the world’s population can still see the intimate image on X.”

The tribunal fined X the statutory maximum of $100,000 (US$72,307) and invited the woman to request additional penalties of up to $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’s submissions to the tribunal.

Neither X nor a lawyer whose name matched X’s named counsel in the case responded to a request for comment.

In a statement to Reuters, British Columbia’s Ministry of Attorney General said it was “not aware of any steps taken by X in response to the ruling in this case or the IIPA in general,” but that it expected the company both to comply and pay validly ordered fines.

“We do not anticipate any difficulty in enforcing those laws if needed,” the ministry’s statement said.

(Reporting by Jeff Horwitz in San Francisco; Editing by Chris Reese)