The eSafety Commissioner of Australia has criticized YouTube and Apple for their insufficient efforts to fight online child sexual abuse because these companies refused to share essential data about user reports and response times. The regulator published a report which revealed major tech firms maintain “safety deficiencies” despite multiple warnings.
The Australian government decided to ban YouTube from social media access for teenagers after rescinding its previous exemption during the previous week. Commissioner Julie Inman Grant stated that these companies ignore criminal activities on their platforms just as no other business sector does.
The review discovered that Meta along with Microsoft and Discord failed to implement “hash-matching” technology for detecting and blocking known abuse images across their entire service range. The companies failed to stop abusive content from being broadcasted live and also did not block access to such material.
Google maintains through its statements that its platforms prohibit prohibited content while implementing AI detection systems and standard industry tools for detection. Apple has not issued any public response to the recent criticism.
The refusal of YouTube and Apple to provide specific information about their trust and safety staff and abuse report numbers demonstrated their lack of transparency which raised doubts about the protection of children online.
