Meta, Google, Other Tech Firms' Response to Child Exploitation Has 'Significant Gaps', Australian Watchdog Says

MT Newswires Live07-14 17:30

Meta (META), Alphabet's Google (GOOG), WhatsApp, Apple (AAPL), and other platforms' responses to child sexual exploitation and abuse have "significant gaps," according to a transparency report published Tuesday by Australia's eSafety watchdog.

The watchdog said that between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2025, it received over 2,000 complaints about sexual extortion, with young men aged 18 to 24 the most affected.

The report revealed "serious gaps" in using technologies like language analysis to identify well-known coercion scripts used by sexual extortion offenders.

Some services also lack clear, accessible ways for users to report sexual extortion or child abuse, eSafety said.

The report found there were gaps in detecting other forms of child sexual abuse material and exploitation, including in livestreamed video calls. Only Microsoft is using tools to detect and disrupt live online child sexual abuse in video calls, it said.

Other companies mentioned in the report were Discord, Microsoft (MSFT), and Snap (SNAP).

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