Australia Regulator Accuses YouTube, Apple Ignoring Child Abuse Material

Australia's eSafety Commissioner has sharply criticized major tech companies, including YouTube and Apple, for failing to adequately address child sexual abuse material on their platforms. The report highlights that YouTube and Apple did not track the number of user reports about such content nor provide data on response times, with YouTube notably unresponsive to inquiries. Following the report, the Australian government included YouTube in its pioneering social media ban for teenagers, overturning a previous exemption. The eSafety Commissioner emphasized that these companies appear to prioritize profits over children's safety, warning that no other industry would be allowed to operate while enabling such crimes. Despite companies like Google and Meta asserting they use industry-standard tools such as AI and hash-matching technology to detect and remove abuse content, the report found significant safety gaps including failures to detect live-streamed abuse and weak reporting mechanisms. The regulator mandated several tech giants to report on their measures against child exploitation, but many have yet to make necessary improvements, increasing the risk of abuse material proliferating on their services.