eSafety commission investigating nearly 1,700 complaints and has asked social media companies to remove offensive content 500 times in a year.

Online bullying among children is reaching "concerning levels", according to Australia's eSafety commissioner. The agency is investigating nearly 1,700 cyberbullying complaints and has asked social media companies to remove offensive content more than 500 times in a year.

The eSafety commission also revealed that it has, for the first time, used its strengthened powers to issue end user notices that can compel bullies to stop their actions or apologise to victims.

The agency says it also has its eye on the "metaverse" and artificial intelligence services like ChatGPT, as those technologies develop, and plans to take further action against global social media companies to encourage them to further crack down on child sexual exploitation.

Monday marks one year since the Online Safety Act handed the eSafety commission new powers to address cyberbullying of children. The act reduced by half the amount of time online platforms are given to respond to eSafety removal notices, down to 24 hours, as well as giving the commission new powers to require individual users to take certain actions.

The eSafety commission's website says it can use an end-user notice to require the person posting cyberbullying material to remove it within a specific timeframe, to stop further bullying, or apologise to their victim. Failing to comply with an end-user notice can lead to court injunctions or civil penalties.

Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety commissioner, said that in the 12 months since the Online Safety Act changes, investigators in her agency had probed more than 1,680 cyberbullying complaints, and made more than 500 informal requests for online platforms to remove content.

"We are seeing the tenor and tone of this youth-driven cyberbullying content escalating to concerning levels," she said.

Inman Grant said bullying complaints had continued a "post-pandemic surge" in the past 12 months, increasing by 69% compared to the previous year.

Child safety and education experts theorise that the effects of the pandemic, including children studying remotely via electronic devices, meant young people were using social media more often to keep in touch with peers, in turn leading to higher incidences of cyberbullying.

The eSafety commission would not say specifically which platforms had been used for bullying content, or how many investigations related to each platform, but it's understood complaints related to all major social media companies including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

Most complaints related to children bullying other children, but a small number were adults bullying children.

Inman Grant also said the eSafety commission had issued its first end-user notices, requiring individuals to take action. Citing privacy concerns, the commission wouldn't say exactly how many had been issued or for what reasons, but it's understood there was only a small number and all were resolved before further action was required.

End-user notices may be served to a child through their school or their parents.

Inman Grant said the commission would issue further legal notices to big tech companies under the act's basic online safety expectations, asking them to take more action on child sexual exploitation. She said she was also considering additional industry codes to regulate how platforms responded to illegal and harmful content.

eSafety is also turning attention to "anticipating technology trends" and emerging technologies, planning to encourage newer companies to develop safety features. Inman Grant said those included recommender engines and algorithms used by social media companies to populate news feeds, as well as new services growing in popularity.

"We have an opportunity to positively shape the technology landscape to reduce the potential for harms related to the metaverse, generative AI and quantum environments, all of which are looming in our near future," she said.

"This will help eSafety be a nimble, anticipatory regulator when these technologies reach full maturity and saturation."

Generative AI - like the ChatGPT text bot and art generators like DALL-E - is a growing category of technology. Artists, writers and teachers have raised concerns over its potential to denigrate art, devalue creativity and facilitate cheating at school.

Article by Josh Butler


Published 23 January, 2023



Published by The Guardian