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Australia set to ban ‘nudify’ apps. How will it work?

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Australia set to ban ‘nudify’ apps. How will it work?

Karla Rivera/Unsplash

Nicola Henry, RMIT University

The Australian government has announced plans to ban “nudify” tools and hold tech platforms accountable for failing to prevent users from accessing them.

This is part of the government’s overall strategy to move towards a “digital duty of care” approach to online safety. This approach places legal responsibility on tech companies to take proactive steps to identify and prevent online harms on their platforms and services.

So how will the nudify ban happen in practice? And will it be effective?

How are nudify tools being used?

Nudify or “undress” tools are available on app stores and websites. They use artificial intelligence (AI) methods to create realistic but fake sexually explicit images of people.

Users can upload a clothed, everyday photo which the tool analyses and then digitally removes the person’s clothing by putting their face onto a nude body (or what the AI “thinks” the person would look like naked).

The problem is that nudify tools are easy to use and access. The images they create can also look highly realistic and can cause significant harms, including bullying, harassment, distress, anxiety, reputational damage and self-harm.

These apps – and other AI tools used to generate image-based abuse material – are an increasing problem.

In June this year, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner revealed that reports of deepfakes and other digitally altered images of people under 18 have more than doubled in the past 18 months.

In the first half of 2024, 16 nudify websites that were named in a lawsuit issued by the San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu were visited more than 200 million times.

In a July 2025 study, 85 nudify websites had a combined average of 18.5 million visitors for the preceding six months. Some 18 of the websites – which rely on tech services such as Google’s sign-on system, or Amazon and Cloudflare’s hosting or content delivery services – made between US$2.6 million and $18.4 million in the past six months.

Aren’t nudify tools already illegal?

For adults, sharing (or threatening to share) non-consensual deepfake sexualised images is a criminal offence under most Australian state, federal and territory laws. But aside from Victoria and New South Wales, it is not currently a criminal offence to create digitally generated intimate images of adults.

For children and adolescents under 18, the situation is slightly different. It’s a criminal offence not only to share child sexual abuse material (including fictional, cartoon or fake images generated using AI), but also to create, access, possess and solicit this material.

Developing, hosting and promoting the use of these tools for creating either adult or child content is not currently illegal in Australia.

Last month, independent federal MP Kate Chaney introduced a bill that would make it a criminal offence to download, access, supply or offer access to nudify apps and other tools of which the dominant or sole purpose is the creation of child sexual abuse material.

The government has not taken on this bill. It instead wants to focus on placing the onus on technology companies.

How will the nudify ban actually work?

Minister for Communications, Anika Wells, said the government will work closely with industry to figure out the best way to proactively restrict access to nudify tools.

At this point, it’s unclear what the time frames are or how the ban will work in practice. It might involve the government “geoblocking” access to nudify sites, or directing the platforms to remove access (including advertising links) to the tools.

It might also involve transparency reporting from platforms on what they’re doing to address the problem, including risk assessments for illegal and harmful activity.

But government bans and industry collaboration won’t completely solve the problem.

Users can get around geographic restrictions with VPNs or proxy servers. The tools can also be used “off the radar” via file-sharing platforms, private forums or messaging apps that already host nudify chatbots.

Open-source AI models can also be fine-tuned to create new nudify tools.

What are tech companies already doing?

Some tech companies have already taken action against nudify tools.

Discord and Apple have removed nudify apps and developer accounts associated with nudify apps and websites.

Meta also bans adult content, including AI-generated nudes. However, Meta came under fire for inadvertently promoting nudify apps through advertisements – even though those ads violate the company’s standards. The company recently filed a lawsuit against Hong Kong nudify company CrushAI, after the company ran more than 87,000 ads across Meta platforms in violation of Meta’s rules on non-consensual intimate imagery.

Tech companies can do much more to mitigate harms from nudify and other deepfake tools. For example, they can ensure guardrails are in place for deepfake generators, remove content more quickly, and ban or suspend user accounts.

They can restrict search results and block keywords such as “undress” or “nudify”, issue “nudges” or warnings to people using related search terms, and use watermarking and provenance indicators to identify the origins of images.

They can also work collaboratively together to share signals of suspicious activity (for example, advertising attempts) and share digital hashes (a unique code like a fingerprint) of known image-based abuse or child sexual abuse content with other platforms to prevent recirculation.

Education is also key

Placing the onus on tech companies and ensuring they are held accountable to reduce the harms from nudify tools is important. But it’s not going to stop the problem.

Education must also be a key focus. Young people need comprehensive education on how to critically examine and discuss digital information and content, including digital data privacy, digital rights and respectful digital relationships.

Digital literacy and respectful relationships education shouldn’t be based on shame and fear-based messaging but rather on affirmative consent. That means giving young people the skills to recognise and negotiate consent to receive, request and share intimate images, including deepfake images.

We need effective bystander interventions. This means teaching bystanders how to effectively and safely challenge harmful behaviours and how to support victim-survivors of deepfake abuse.

We also need well-resourced online and offline support systems so victim-survivors, perpetrators, bystanders and support persons can get the help they need.


If this article has raised issues for you, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit the eSafety Commissioner’s website for helpful online safety resources. You can also contact Lifeline crisis support on 13 11 14 or text 0477 13 11 14, Suicide Call Back Services on 1300 659 467, or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged 5-25). If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call the police on 000.The Conversation

Nicola Henry, Professor, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, & Deputy Director, Social Equity Research Centre, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Are business schools priming students for a world that no longer exists?

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Are business schools priming students for a world that no longer exists?

Carla Liuzzo, Queensland University of Technology and Mimi Tsai, Queensland University of Technology

Endless economic expansion isn’t sustainable. Scientists are telling us our planet is already beyond its limits, with the risks to communities and the economy made clear in the federal government’s recent climate risk assessment.

Sustainability is a hot topic in Australian business schools. However, teaching about the possible need to limit economic growth – whether directly or indirectly related to sustainability – is uncommon.

Typically, business school teaching is based on concepts of sustainable development and “green growth”.
Under these scenarios, we can continue to grow gross domestic product (GDP) globally without continuing to grow emissions – what is known as “decoupling”. It’s a “have your cake and eat it too” promise for sustainability.

Our new research published in the journal Futures shows business students themselves are interested in learning the skills they would need under an alternative post-growth future.

Emerging alternatives to ‘growth is good’

There is mounting evidence of the difficulty of “decoupling” economic growth from emissions growth. The United Nations goals of sustainable development are “in peril”.

This has led to increased interest in no-growth or post-growth economic models and to the movement towards degrowth. Degrowth means shrinking economic production to use less of the world’s resources and avoid climate crisis.

Explicit teaching of degrowth rejects the belief in endless growth. This presents a challenge to traditional concepts in business education, including profit maximisation, competition and the notion of “free markets”.

The issue, and one that degrowth invites students to consider, is that green growth and sustainable development are underpinned by the need for continued economic growth and development. This “growth obsession” is pushing the planet and society to its limits.

Students are keen

Our new study provides a snapshot of students’ interest in alternative systems. It reveals 90% of respondents are open to learning about different economic models.

The study found 96% of students believe business leaders must understand alternative models to continued economic growth. Yet only 15% were aware of any alternatives that may exist. Most (71%) believed viable alternatives exist, but they admitted to lacking sufficient knowledge.

The study had 61 participants currently studying a masters of business administration (MBA) in a top Australian institution.

The research raises the question: if future business leaders are not made aware of alternatives, won’t they continue to assume growth is “inherently good”, and perpetuate the business practices that have pushed humanity beyond planetary boundaries?

The trouble with endless growth

Advocates of the “beyond growth” agenda argue endless growth is not possible. They promote alternate measures of progress to GDP, such as the recent Measuring What Matters report.

Degrowth proposes scaling back the consumption of resources as part of a transition to post-growth economies. Their aim is what economist Tim Jackson calls prosperity without growth. This entails businesses sharing value with communities, and reducing production of things like fast fashion, fast food and fast tech.

It is a rejection of maximising profit in favour of maximising value, based around meeting real needs like housing, food and essential services. Some industries would grow, such as care, education, public transport and renewables. Others may shrink or vanish.

Degrowth and post-growth aren’t alien concepts. There are grassroots movements such as minimalism. Social media abounds with lists of “things I no longer buy”, social enterprises, the right-to-repair movement and community-supported agriculture.

Degrowth also invites students to debate concepts like modern monetary theory, income ratio limits and universal basic income.

The role of business schools

Business schools are doing great work teaching students about changing consumer preferences for green alternatives, new global standards for reporting environmental and social impact, and ways businesses can reduce their environmental impact.

The Australian Business Deans Council in March this year detailed these efforts in its Climate Capabilities Report. This highlighted the need for business schools to produce graduates capable of “balancing business and climate knowledge”.

Our study of Australian business school students shows they are open to learning about degrowth. It challenges the assumption that ideas critical of endless growth would be unwelcome in business schools in Australia.

There is an argument for making explicit degrowth teaching in business schools more accessible because business schools have been criticised for not doing enough to address climate change and social inequality.

Globally, degrowth is starting to be taught explicitly in business schools in Europe, the UK and even the US.

Business schools have long been criticised for a culture of greed and cutthroat competition. As one distinguished professor from the University of Michigan recently put it, “today’s business schools were designed for a world that no longer exists”.

The introduction of no growth or degrowth scenarios to business schools in Australia may go some way to ensuring they are preparing leaders for the future – not priming students for a world that no longer exists.The Conversation

Carla Liuzzo, Lecturer, Graduate School of Business, Queensland University of Technology and Mimi Tsai, Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Taller, leaner, faster: the evolution of the ‘perfect’ AFL body

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Hunter Bennett, University of South Australia

Geelong champion Patrick Dangerfield wowed the AFL world during last week’s preliminary final win against Hawthorn, pushing his 35-year-old body to the limit to propel his team into this year’s Grand Final.

At an age when most AFL players have retired or are slowing down, Dangerfield showcased his immense physical attributes, even prompting Hawks coach Sam Mitchell to plead: “I’m certainly ready for Dangerfield to retire.”

Now Dangerfield and his Geelong teammates will take on Brisbane for the AFL premiership in a battle between the 2022 and 2024 winners, respectively.

It has taken these athletes more than 10 months of intense training and preparation to get there. They are finely tuned machines, built to meet the rigorous demands of elite Australian rules football.

But what exactly constitutes the “perfect” AFL body? And what qualities does an AFL athlete need to succeed?

The physical demands of AFL

Australian football is an intermittent contact sport made up of frequent bursts of high-intensity activity (such as sprinting, jumping and tackling) separated by brief periods of low-intensity activity (such as standing, walking and jogging).

With this in mind, it requires players to excel in multiple physical domains to be successful:

  • Aerobic fitness: research indicates the average AFL player covers around 13 kilometres during a match, with some players even getting close to 19km. As a result, having high aerobic fitness (the ability use oxygen to create energy for physical activity) is integral to ensure they can both cover these vast distances and maintain a high level of performance
  • Repeated sprint ability: in conjunction with the ability to run for a long time, AFL athletes also need to be able to perform repeated sprints without fatiguing and losing speed – something known as “repeated sprint ability”. This is what ensures they stay fast and powerful in the latter parts of games
  • Strength: AFL is a contested sport. Players need upper and lower body strength to lay tackles, stay strong in marking contests and hold their position under contact. To illustrate this, some older research indicates the average AFL player can bench press about 125 kilograms, although there are anecdotal reports of larger players benching more than 170kg
Athletes from all AFL clubs need to do serious gym work to add strength, power and more.

Power: in conjunction with brute strength, AFL athletes also need to be explosive. This is what allows them to jump high to take a mark or make a spoil, and is a defining characteristic of elite AFL athletes. Current Greater Western Sydney player Leek Aleer holds the record for the largest running jump height in the AFL, with a whopping 107 centimetres.

Speed and agility: being able to change direction and accelerate rapidly are essential for evading opponents and creating scoring opportunities. These are often considered to be some of the most important AFL attributes. In fact, some research suggests faster players are significantly more likely to get drafted than slower players.

Decision making: AFL athletes also need to be able to make good decisions when the ball is in their hands. Making good split-second decisions allows their team to maintain possession, which can have a major influence on the outcome of a game.

Evolution of the AFL athlete

Research on the fitness of elite AFL athletes is sparse (understandably so – clubs might want to keep this information private as a competitive edge).

But we do know the physical profile of the typical AFL player has evolved dramatically over time.

Historically, players were often shorter and stockier, with an average height of around 180cm in the 1940s, and then around 184cm in the 1990s.

However, there has been a noticeable shift over the past 30 years towards taller, leaner athletes. The average height of the modern-day player is currently edging closer to 190cm, with a notable number of key position players exceeding 200cm.

We have also seen the running demands of the game increase. Over the past 20 years, the total distance athletes are travelling has increased. They are also accelerating more often and spending more time running at faster speeds.

This change has been somewhat reflected in the athletic profiles of the elite young players hoping to get drafted, with a consistent increase in the aerobic fitness of draftees over the past 20 years.

AFL preseasons can last for five months and can push athletes to their limits.

Interestingly, it has been suggested this change may largely be the result of changes in game style, where teams are adopting a less contested, faster, more free-flowing game style.

Indeed, this is something we have seen happen in the AFLW over the past few seasons, which reinforces this suggestion.

The ideal AFL body depends on the player’s position

With all this in mind, it’s important to note it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to AFL athletes.

Different positions will have different requirements.

For example, you can expect midfielders to be fitter, more agile and physically smaller than full forwards and full backs. Conversely, you can almost guarantee key forwards and defenders will be bigger and stronger than midfielders.

The modern AFL athlete is a product of years of specific training and a deep understanding of the game’s evolving demands – and the Grand Final is the best opportunity to observe it all come to fruition.

And as the game continues to evolve, so will the ideal physical profile of its athletes.The Conversation

Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The Optus brand is in tatters. How can it even begin to rebuild customers’ trust?

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The Optus brand is in tatters. How can it even begin to rebuild customers’ trust?

Cassandra France, The University of Queensland and Amanda Spry, RMIT University

Optus finds itself in a perilous situation once again. Last week’s 13-hour Triple Zero network outage left about 480 customers unable to call for emergency help. Three deaths linked to the outage are being investigated.

That outage wasn’t an isolated incident for Optus. Just this week, the Federal Court imposed a A$100 million penalty on the telco for “unconscionable conduct” involving predatory sales tactics toward customers in vulnerable situations, which went on for years.

Both those crises come on the back of a 2022 data breach and a 2023 major network outage, which also affected Triple Zero calls. Optus vowed then to “ensure it will not happen again”.

These repeated failures signal serious problems within, and for, Optus. As its chief executive Stephen Rue was repeatedly asked this week – how can Optus regain customers’ trust?

Building trust before the crisis

To shore up a brand against damage from potential crises, companies should proactively build a reservoir of goodwill with their customers and the wider public.

By engaging consumers in positive brand actions, such as genuine corporate social responsibility, brands can build a halo that buffers the brand during times of crisis.

Indeed, Optus spent decades cultivating a strong identity as a trusted, community-minded brand. This is exemplified by its long-running “Yes” tagline, which has been central to shaping an approachable and people-centred image, making it more than a faceless utilities provider.

An aerial view of Perth's Optus Stadium.
There have been calls to strip Optus of its naming rights to the Perth stadium.
Harrison Reilly/Unsplash, CC BY-NC

Optus has embedded its brand into Australia’s cultural life through sponsorship of major sporting events, from the Australian Open tennis to the naming rights to Perth’s Optus Stadium.

Yet, this image has been chipped away over recent years. In 2022, Optus experienced what has been deemed a “preventable” data hack, which leaked 9.5 million consumers’ private information. In 2024, Optus was the most distrusted brand in Australia, according to Roy Morgan. But it managed some improvement in 2025, moving to the 4th most distrusted brand – though that was before this latest outage.

The recurrence of crises for Optus, year after year, dismantles the accumulated brand image and intensifies negative responses from a range of stakeholders.

How to respond during a crisis

Effective brand response to a crisis is dependent on the nature of the crisis itself, meaning that there is no one single strategy suited to all circumstances. In the case of Optus, we see an incredibly severe case of harm arising from failures to deliver on a telecommunications company’s key purpose: making phone calls.

Previously, Optus has proudly shared stories of how they keep “the community connected” and provide “the backing of a strong network”.

Yet these recent events undermine these claims and demonstrate process and performance deficiencies which can be incredibly difficult to recover from, especially in light of the severity of consequences for some customers.

So far, Optus’ crisis response has shown it understands the importance of owning their accountability and expressing remorse for what happened as a consequence of its mistakes. (Though some have questioned why it took Singapore-based parent company Singtel nearly a week to issue its own “deeply sorry” statement.)

But taking responsibility is the only first step in the process. It also requires real commitment and action to effect change and avoid recurrence.

Optus are taking steps, announcing an independent review, which it says will be made public. But as governance expert Helen Bird pointed out this week, the company promised the same thing about its November 2023 Triple Zero outage – but didn’t follow through.

Even if it’s different this time, with experienced business and government leader Kerry Schott conducting the new investigation, Optus still needs to follow through with clear actions and real evidence of change.

How can Optus start to rebuild?

Brands can take many years to recover from major crises. The ongoing nature of crises at Optus make that road to recovery even more challenging. Yet, if Optus and its parent company Singtel are committed, there are certainly many actions they can pursue.

For Optus, transparency in action will be critical.

Optus needs to show not just accountability for failure but corrective action for resolution.

It cannot correct the dire consequences of its multiple previous missteps. But the company can seek to avoid repeating those mistakes again.

As others have pointed out, there are measurable ways to judge Optus’ ongoing response – which could involve the federal communications minister imposing new conditions on Optus’ licence to operate.

Beyond the immediate investigations and responses to the latest Triple Zero outage, Optus could also reinvest in winning back public goodwill, such as potentially exploring opportunities to donate and support emergency services and local communities.

Importantly, these cannot be simple, short-term fixes, but must involve long-term commitments.

Through frequent, public progress updates and evidence of investment in action which leads to substantiated outcomes, the brand may be able to rebuild some of the damage done to Australians’ trust – especially its customers’.The Conversation

Cassandra France, Lecturer in Marketing, The University of Queensland and Amanda Spry, Senior Lecturer of Marketing, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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