Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Calls Big Tech Senate Hearing ‘Disappointing’

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has accused Big Tech firms of doing far too little to combat the online spread of objectionable material. In an opinion piece in The Australian newspaper, Ms. Inman Grant claims “many companies weren’t even using available tools and technologies to detect child sexual exploitation and abuse material, let alone detecting grooming or live-streamed child abuse.” Nor did they have effective barriers to stop users, banned from their platforms, from creating new accounts, and from re-offending. Over the past two years, she said, the Office of the eSafety Commissioner found online safety protocols lacking across more than 27 tech services, including Apple, Meta, X, Microsoft, TikTok, Snap, and Google....