Tech

Tech giants forced to hand over anti-abuse processes

Published

1 year ago

August 31, 2022

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

Related Topics:APPLE meta Microsoft Tech

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Dr Karen Sutherland

Dr Karen Sutherland is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast where she designs and delivers social media education and research. Dr Sutherland is also the Co-Founder and Social Media Specialist at Dharana Digital marketing agency focused on helping people working in the health and wellness space.

Tech

Ticker News is available on podcast apps and iHeartRadio

Published

3 weeks ago

September 1, 2023

ticker NEWS

Ticker News available on podcast apps, allowing you to hear the latest news, plus special programs.

Ticker News is available as a podcast.

You can catch up on the latest news, or programs devoted to special topics including U.S. politics and our Original documentaries.

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“We are putting significant resources into Ticker content to make sure we get to the heart of the stories we cover.”

Every day, you can catch up on our news programs from Ticker News, as well as our special documentary programs.

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Tech

Meta to launch microblogging competitor in wake of Twitter backlash

Published

3 months ago

July 5, 2023

ticker NEWS

The recent backlash against Musk’s proposed tweet cap could prove to be the perfect time to launch the competitor

Meta Platforms, the company behind Facebook, plans to launch a microblogging app called Threads on Thursday, to operate as a direct competitor to Twitter.

The launch comes just days after Twitter boss Elon Musk attracted criticism by announcing limits to how many posts users could read on the platform.

Threads will allow users to directly port their followers from Instagram, another app owned by the company, and to keep the same username. This feature will allow users to supercharge the often slow process of building a following on the new site.

While other apps such as Mastodon and Blue Sky have failed to present much of a challenge to Twitter, Threads is launching after a period of intense criticism and scepticism of Twitter, which followed Musk’s US$44 billion purchase of the platform in 2022.

Musk has made significant staffing cuts in areas like content moderation which has caused a rift with advertisers. He has also implemented several elements such as an US$8 per month account verification system which has proved unpopular with users.

Instagram boasts roughly 2.3 billion users compared to Twitter’s almost 400 million, which poses a significant user advantage from which to draw from.