B.C. tribunal rules X can't be fined for not deleting intimate image

A British Columbia tribunal has ruled it cannot penalize social media platform X for not deleting an intimate image of a person shared online against her will, and that blocking the image in Canada instead reasonably addresses its unlawful distribution.

The Civil Resolution Tribunal of B.C. says in a decision rendered Monday that the case stems from its March 2025 protection order that X delete the intimate image shared on its platform.

The decision says X "geoblocked" the image, making it unviewable in Canada, but it was not deleted.

The tribunal then ruled in September 2025 that X must pay a $100,000 penalty for not deleting the image, but the social media platform challenged that decision, saying the tribunal could not order it to do anything more than geoblock the image.

Tribunal vice chair Eric Regehr says in the latest decision that he's reversing the fine after X took "reasonable steps" to address the image's distribution by blocking it in Canada.

He says ordering the deletion of the image in other countries would, in effect, "govern a foreign corporation’s operations in a foreign country" and would not be reasonable.

"When laws could impact the sovereignty of other countries, the principle of comity affects how those laws are interpreted," Regehr says in the decision.

"The court concluded that such an order would, in effect, govern a foreign corporation’s operations in a foreign country, and would intrude on a foreign corporation’s contractual relationships with people all over the world," he says.

Regehr rejected X's request that the complainant be ordered to pay its legal fees.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 3, 2026.

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