The online safety agency says it has no Australian staff at Twitter to contact to take down child exploitation material after mass layoffs by Twitter CEO Elon Musk shut down the team.
Core items:
- Twitter’s Australian team was axed after Elon Musk’s takeover
- The Online Safety Authority says it has no direct link to report child abuse material on Twitter
- At the same time, the regulator is considering imposing a binding code of conduct on the industry
The Office of the eSafety Commissioner has confirmed to a parliamentary committee that Twitter no longer has Australian staff, a direct line which the regulator said is vital to keeping children safe online.
“We share your concern that Twitter, in particular, is no longer able to respond to child sexual exploitation. There are no Australian staff here anymore,” said the bureau’s acting chief operating officer, Toby Dagg.
“The Australian addition has been a really critical component of Twitter’s security apparatus for us.”
Australian employees found they had been locked out of company systems in November last year after Mr Musk pointed to widespread cuts on Twitter.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has written to Mr Musk to express her concern at how the Australian team’s removal has impacted its ability to deal with child exploitation material on Twitter.
Following his acquisition of the company, Mr. Musk declared that he would rid the site of “Priority #1” child abuse material.
A review by US news outlet NBC News in January found that Twitter accounts that traded and sold child abuse material had been active for months using thinly veiled terms and hashtags, including some that began before Mr Musk’s takeover.
Green Senator David Shoebridge, who raised the issue during the inquiry, said it was “just wrong” that tech platforms could fire local employees without consequences.
“Given the proliferation of online exploitation material, it is remarkable that there is no local staff to respond to complaints and no Australian office tasked with taking down objectionable or dangerous material,” said Senator Shoebridge.
“Meta aside, major techs refused to even appear at the investigation today, proving once again that they believe they are outside the reach of the law.”
The commissioner’s office said it was not just the presence of a Trust and Safety team in Australia that made a difference, but also the ability for the regulator to contact them directly to raise issues.
Mr Dagg said the office has access to “regional” representatives but it is “not quite the same” as being able to pick up the phone to speak directly to a security team.
The committee also heard that Microsoft takes an average of two days to respond to complaints about child exploitation, such as live streams on Skype.
Regulator considering mandatory code
Ms Inman Grant is considering introducing a mandatory code of conduct for social media companies after being given the power to do so by the federal government.
Last week, Ms Inman Grant told Parliament she had opposed draft codes written by industry, saying they had insufficient safeguards for the community, a concern her office had raised with industry on a number of occasions.
The commissioner recently said that social media companies were doing “appallingly little” to tackle child abuse material on their platforms.
Senator Shoebridge said the industry cannot be relied on to regulate itself and the government must intervene.
Mr Dagg said mandatory codes are unlikely to impose requirements on Twitter – or others – to provide local staff, although a mandatory code could require more commitment to detecting illegal material on social media sites.
Source: www.abc.net.au
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