Aus govt issues extreme content notices to overseas tech platforms over child safety
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has issued notices to overseas tech companies, giving them less then six months to draft and submit enforceable codes that will prevent children from accessing pornography and violent content on its platforms.
The codes will prevent young children from encountering adult material online, and will apply to app stores and apps; websites – including porn websites; search engines; social media services; hosting services; internet service providers; instant messaging, SMS, chat, multi-player gaming, online dating services; and equipment providers.
“Our own research shows that while the average age when Australian children first encounter pornography is around 13, a third of these children are actually seeing this content younger and often by accident,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.
“We know kids will always be curious and will likely seek out porn as they enter adolescence and explore their sexuality, so, many of these measures are really focused on preventing unintentional exposure to young children.
“And it’s not just porn sites we are talking about here, with 60 per cent of young people telling us they were exposed to pornography on social media. This exposure was often unintentional and happened on popular services including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat.
“The last thing anyone wants is children seeing violent or extreme pornography without guidance, context or the appropriate maturity levels because they may think that a video showing a man aggressively choking a woman during sex on a porn site is what consent, sex and healthy relationships should look like.
“Kids’ exposure to violent and extreme pornography is a major concern for many parents and carers, and they have a key role to play both from a protective and educative standpoint. But it can’t all be on them, we also need industry to play their part by putting in some effective barriers to protect children.”
Industry bodies are required to present a preliminary draft of the codes by October 3, 2024, with the final codes for registration to be submitted no later than December 19 2024.
If any code falls short, Inman Grant said she will have “the power to set the rules for them by moving to standards”.
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Nathan Jolly is the Deputy Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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About time. Especially with X becoming a fully fledged 18+ platform with Elon’s best wishes…
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