Australia says tech giants fail to curb child abuse online

Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft and Snap still are failing to close critical safety gaps that allow child sexual abuse material, grooming and sexual extortion to spread across chats, games and social platforms, Australia’s internet regulator found. Canberra is preparing to give the watchdog more power and raise the ceiling for breaches of the under-16 social media law to A$99 million.

The new transparency report covers July 1 to December 30, 2025 and sits inside a four-report disclosure series that began after eSafety issued legally enforceable notices on July 22, 2024 to Apple, Discord, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Skype, Snap and WhatsApp. Those notices require six-monthly reporting for two years on child sexual exploitation and abuse, grooming and sexual extortion. The standard is to detect abuse material before upload or as soon as it appears.

The biggest failures remain weak detection of newly created child sexual abuse material, poor spotting of live abuse on video-calling services and too little use of language analysis to identify sexual extortion. Julie Inman Grant said eSafety has given companies clear guidance on how to stem abuse and has not seen enough action in return. Sexual extortion is a widespread and acute harm affecting both children and adults, and children targeted by it are also experiencing child sexual exploitation and abuse.

On June 28, the Albanese government said it would strengthen eSafety’s information-gathering powers and double the maximum penalty for breaches of the under-16 law. More than 5 million under-16 accounts had been removed, deactivated or restricted since the ban took effect on December 10, 2025, and eSafety currently treats platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, YouTube, Kick and Reddit as age-restricted. Australia is already using that framework to press companies beyond social media, including gaming and chat services, over grooming and exploitation.

ABC News found more than 2,000 sexual extortion complaints in six months, with young men aged 18 to 24 the most common victims and first contact most often happening on Tinder, followed by Instagram, Grindr, TikTok and Telegram.