SYDNEY, Oct 16 (Reuters) - An Australian regulator has fined Elon Musk’s social media platform X A$610,500 ($386,000) for failing to cooperate with a probe into anti-child abuse practices, a blow to a company that has struggled to keep advertisers amid complaints it is going soft on moderating content.

Though small compared to the $44 billion Musk paid for the website in October 2022, the fine is a reputational hit for a company that has seen a continuous revenue decline as advertisers cut spending on a platform that has stopped most content moderation and reinstated thousands of banned accounts.

Most recently the EU said it was investigating X for potential violation of its new tech rules after the platform was accused of failing to rein in disinformation in relation to Hamas’s attack on Israel.

“If you’ve got answers to questions, if you’re actually putting people, processes and technology in place to tackle illegal content at scale, and globally, and if it’s your stated priority, it’s pretty easy to say,” Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in an interview.

Under Australian laws that took effect in 2021, the regulator can compel internet companies to give information about their online safety practices or face a fine.

Inman Grant said the commission also issued a warning to Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google for noncompliance with its request for information about handling of child abuse content, calling the search engine giant’s responses to some questions “generic”.

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