Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has released a new transparency report outlining how companies such as Discord, Google, and Meta are handling child sexual abuse material and the grooming of children, and the conclusion is that companies in control of major social platforms are simply not doing enough to protect Australian children.
The latest report focuses in particular on sexual extortion, or sextortion, which eSafey has found is continuing to rise.
In the last six months of 2025 alone, eSafety fielded more than 2,000 complaints regarding sextortion, with young men aged between 18 and 24 the most impacted. Another report, co-authored by eSafety and the Australian Institute of Criminology, found that 11.3 per cent of adolescents had been the victim of sexploitation, with more than half reporting the incident had occurred before they turned 16.
Apple, Discord, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Snap and WhatsApp are required to report their compliance with Australia’s Basic Online Safety Expectations, and the latest responses reveal the companies are failing to take advantage of technologies such as language analysis to identify known extortion techniques.
“Gaps in reporting tools also persist across services like WhatsApp, iMessage, Discord and Google Messages, with some services lacking clear, accessible ways for users to report sexual extortion or child abuse or failing to provide dedicated reporting categories for these harms,” eSafety said.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said she was “deeply concerned” about sextortion’s impact on children and the activity’s long-term psychological impact.
”The goal is often quick financial gain, with perpetrators using high-pressure tactics to force victims into paying. This form of extortion can cause high levels of stress, panic, psychological distress and financial loss,” Inman Grant (pictured) said in a July 14 statement.
“In several cases, we have provided these platforms with evidence of how their services are being colonised by criminals to devastating impact, with clear guidance on how to stem the abuse. Even when we’ve laid this out, we haven’t seen adequate responses, despite the technology being readily available.
“This report shows that platforms could and should be doing a lot more to prevent these harms and there are simple steps they can take today to protect users.”
The new report also found that other forms of CSAM, such as livestreamed abuse, remain an “under-addressed threat”.
In response to the report, CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM) Australia David Braga said the lack of adequate response by tech companies was a “perennial cause of concern”.
“It is likely that without substantially stronger provisions that require service providers to detect and prevent videos and images of child sexual abuse from being streamed and watched on their platforms and devices, backed by effective enforcement powers, we will continue to see the same pattern of company behaviour emerge under the Digital Duty of Care,” Braga said in a statement.
“Tech companies are among the most well-resourced and influential companies in the world. If, after all this time, these companies still aren’t willing to lift their game and ensure their platforms are child- friendly, then they must be compelled to do so through legislation.”
Inman Grant did concede that some progress has been made.
“We are pleased to report some incremental safety improvements following engagement with service providers from previous reports. Safety uplift has been recorded with Google and Snap taking additional steps to proactively detect known CSEA; Meta using new tools to detect grooming, and Discord began blocking URLs to known CSEA,” Inman Grant said. However, more can – and should – be done.
“A comprehensive, multilayered approach is essential – combining proactive detection tools, strong and accessible reporting systems, and this ongoing innovation to address these issues,” Inman Grant said.
“ This is particularly important because sexual extortion results in the creation of new CSEA – rather than known CSEA – every hour of every day.”
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David Hollingworth
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.