Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner is demanding tech giants hand over their anti-abuse processes, in a bid to tackle dangerous material

Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner has demanded major digital tech platforms Meta, Apple, and Microsoft share their processes, to eradicate the sharing of child abuse material on their platforms.

The warning comes amid growing concerns of abusive and potentially dangerous material online. If the tech giants fail to hand over the details, they will face hefty fines for non-compliance.

Meta, Apple and Microsoft have been reminded that they each face a fine of $555,000AUD per day for not complying with this directive.

The initial laws took effect in January  requiring the technology giants to provide specific details to the Australian government on their practices.

The new law gave the corporations 28 days to comply, but these requirements were largely ignored by Meta, Apple and Microsoft.

Now, the tech giants have withheld the information from the e-Safety Commissioner for nearly seven months.

Yet, it remains to be seen how the Australian government will follow through to force tech giants to provide their anti-child abuse processes from their platforms.

This matter raises a number of ongoing issues relating to control and compliance by mainstream digital and social media platforms.

The Australian government has introduced laws surrounding cyber bullying, violent material and the use of news on social media platforms, yet the laws have not been effective in creating significant change in the content and practices appearing online.

With billions of people using social media every day, the silence from tech giants such as Meta, Facebook and Microsoft may be because they do not have an effective process.

These organisations do not have human or technological resources to moderate the sheer volume of user content being posted.

At least 4.75 billion posts are uploaded by users every day, with many taking it upon themselves to report harmful content in their feeds.

The next few months will be crucial for the Australian Government’s e-Safety Commissioner in how this law will be enforced with the main aim of stamping out child abuse material online.

Report by Dr Karen Sutherland, University of the Sunshine Coast and Dharana Digital