Australia: Issued eSafety Commissioner's Second Transparency Report on X, TikTok, Google, Twitch and Discord strategies to address online child exploitation

On 16 October 2023, the eSafety Commissioner of Australia published its second transparency report following the Commissioner's legal notices issued on 23 February 2023 to Twitter (now X), Google, TikTok, Twitch, and Discord requiring the companies to disclose their measures to tackle online child sexual abuse in accordance with the Basic Online Safety Expectations outlined in the Online Safety Act 2021. The Commissioner stated that X and Google failed to comply with the notices, with Google receiving an official warning for offering generic responses, and X encountering non-compliance problems due to a lack of responses to crucial questions. Notably, X has been fined AUD 610,500 for its failure to comply and has been given 28 days to respond or request the withdrawal of the penalty. Key findings outlined in the report include, among others, Discord’s failure to take steps to detect child sexual exploitation in live streams and not using language analysis technology to detect online child sexual exploitation content. Google and Discord were found to not block links to known child sexual exploitation material. YouTube, TikTok and Twitch are using technology to detect grooming, while X, Discord and other Google services are not.