The eSafety Commissioner has served legal notices on social media giants and one of the world’s largest technology companies, calling on them to demonstrate how they’re keeping children safe online.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said the notices were issued to Twitter, TikTok, Google (including YouTube), livestreaming site Twitch and online chat and instant messaging service Discord.
Ms Inman Grant said the notices were issued under Australia’s new Basic Online Safety Expectations, which set out the safety measures expected of technology companies to protect Australian users, particularly children, from harm.
She said the notices also included questions on how these companies were dealing with the growing issue of online sexual extortion, as well as the role their algorithms might play in amplifying seriously harmful content.
“The creation, dissemination and viewing of online child sexual abuse inflicts incalculable trauma and ruins lives,” Ms Inman Grant said.
“It is also illegal,” she said.
“It is vital that tech companies take all the steps they reasonably can to remove this material from their platforms and services.”
Ms Inman Grant said eSafety’s first round of notices, sent in August to companies including Apple and Microsoft, found that many companies were not taking relatively simple steps to protect children and were failing to use widely available technology to detect and remove material.
“Back in November, Twitter boss Elon Musk tweeted that addressing child exploitation was ‘Priority #1’, but we have not seen detail on how Twitter is delivering on that commitment,” the Commissioner said.
“We’ve also seen extensive job cuts to key trust and safety personnel across the company – the very people whose job it is to protect children – and we want to know how Twitter will tackle this problem going forward,” she said.
“These powers are designed to shine a light on these platforms and lift online safety by compelling them to give some straight answers to some straight questions.”
Ms Inman Grant said if the companies did not respond to the notices within 35 days, they could face financial penalties of up to $687,500 for every day they failed to comply.
