Australian regulator says YouTube, others ‘turning a blind eye' to child abuse material
In a report published on Wednesday, the eSafety Commissioner said YouTube had been especially unresponsive to questions and failed to share how many user reports it receives or how long it takes to act on them. The same was said of Apple.
'When left to their own devices, these companies aren't prioritising the protection of children and are seemingly turning a blind eye to crimes occurring on their services,' said Julie Inman Grant, Australia's eSafety Commissioner, in comments reported by Reuters.
The Australian government recently decided to include YouTube in its social media restrictions for teenagers, after the regulator advised against giving it an exemption.
The report looked at how Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Discord, Skype, Snap, and WhatsApp are addressing child abuse content. According to the findings, many platforms had gaps in safety. These included poor systems for detecting live-streamed abuse, weak methods for reporting harmful content, and a failure to block known child abuse links.
The regulator also said some companies had not taken action even after being warned in previous years. It pointed out that not all companies were using 'hash-matching' technology across their services – a tool used to detect known child abuse images by comparing them to a database.
'In the case of Apple services and Google's YouTube, they didn't even answer our questions about how many user reports they received about child sexual abuse on their services or details of how many trust and safety personnel Apple and Google have on staff,' Inman Grant told Reuters.
Google has previously said it uses industry-standard tools, including hash-matching and artificial intelligence, to detect and remove abuse material. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, says it bans graphic content on its platforms.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News18
an hour ago
- News18
iPhone 16 Users Issued Major Security Warning By Indian Govt: What You Should Know
iPhone security warning issued by the Indian government relates to the issues that have been fixed with the latest iOS, macOS and iPadOS update. iPhone 16 and other users have got a security risk alert from the Indian government this week. The new warning has been issued just a few days after Apple released the iOS 18.6 update for users that comes with a host of security fixes. The alert from the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team or CERT-In clearly highlights the need for iPhone, iPad and even Mac users to install the latest update immediately. The security warning talks about multiple security vulnerabilities that can be exploited to bypass device control and gain access to confidential data. The latest CERT-In security bulletin dated August 4, 2025 comes with a high severity rating. The alert says, 'Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Apple products due to type confusion, use-after-free errors, out-of-bounds memory access (read/write), integer overflows, buffer overflows, race conditions, logic errors, improper file parsing, insufficient input validation, improper privilege management, and flawed memory handling. An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities by sending specially crafted requests on the targeted system." If the hacker is able to exploit these risks, they can use malicious applications to target the devices and make them unusable. As we mentioned before, Apple already knows about the vulnerability and has offered the iOS 18.6 update for the mentioned devices and platforms. All you have to do is go to Settings – General – Software update to install the new update and secure your devices. You can also join the iOS 26 public beta program which is available for iPhone 11 and later models. view comments First Published: August 06, 2025, 07:34 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
an hour ago
- Business Standard
RBI MPC Meeting Live Updates: Repo rate likely to remain unchanged, scope for easing remains
RBI MPC Meeting August 2025 Live Updates: Governor Sanjay Malhotra will address the media on the MPC's decisions after today's meeting. Stay tuned here for live updates RBI MPC Meet Live Updates: The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is expected to maintain the status quo on interest rates during its upcoming review on August 6. However, sentiment around the decision has turned more cautious following US President Donald Trump's imposition of a 25 per cent tariff on Indian exports. Rate cut unlikely, but not off the table After the MPC surprised markets in June with a 50 basis point repo rate cut to 5.5 per cent and a shift from an "accommodative" to a "neutral" stance, expectations of another immediate cut have faded. A Business Standard poll showed that 6 out of 10 economists anticipate no change in the August meeting, while the remaining four believe a 25 basis point cut is possible. India's retail inflation fell to a six-year low of 2.1 per cent in June, driven by a drop in food prices and strong monsoon progress. At the same time, the manufacturing sector reported its fastest growth in over a year, with the HSBC–S&P Global Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) jumping to 59.1 in July. Despite these positives, the external environment remains unpredictable. The US tariffs and global monetary policy trends continue to cast a shadow over domestic decision-making. When and where to watch? RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra will announce the outcome of the MPC's August meeting at 10 am today. The announcement will be streamed live on the RBI's official website, YouTube channel, and X account. A press conference is scheduled to follow at 12 noon.
Economic Times
an hour ago
- Economic Times
Dollar drifts as investors await Fed governor replacement
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel SINGAPORE: The dollar was rangebound on Wednesday, with investors choosing to stay on the sidelines ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to fill a coming vacancy on the Federal Reserve 's Board of said on Tuesday he will decide on a nominee by the end of the week and had separately narrowed the possible replacements for Fed Chair Jerome Powell to a short list of out the same day also showed the U.S. services sector activity unexpectedly flatlined in July even as input costs climbed by the most in nearly three years, underscoring the hit from Trump's tariffs on the economy, which has also begun to bite corporate those did little to sway the dollar, as traders were hesitant to take on fresh positions ahead of news on who would fill the Fed board vacancy. Concerns are mounting that partisan loyalty would invade the staid world of central bank dollar was last little changed at 147.54 yen, while the euro ticked up 0.02% to $1.5760. Sterling last bought $ in currencies overnight had been muted."I still think that between now and the end of the week, if Trump is going to make an announcement about who he wants to fill the vacant board seat, depending on... how credible (the markets) view that candidate to be, I think that has the potential to prompt some reaction across everything," said Ray Attrill, head of FX research at National Australia Bank (NAB)."For me, that' the biggest swing factor for the next sort of 48 hours or so."While moves in the dollar have been more subdued this week, the currency has yet to recover from its steep losses on Friday, when it clocked its largest one-day percentage fall in nearly four months following an alarming jobs a basket of currencies, the dollar was last at 98.76 , still some distance away from its peak of 100.25 hit on Friday before the nonfarm payrolls continue to price in an over 90% chance of a Fed cut in September, with about 58 basis points worth of easing expected by the data such as Tuesday's services ISM report underscore the fine line the Fed has to tread, as policymakers weigh rising price pressures from Trump's tariffs against signs of a weakening U.S. economy."The services ISM has obviously got that kind of stagflationary whiff about it... that's obviously a bit of a two-edged sword in terms of what does that mean for policy," said NAB's Attrill."At the moment, I think we're sort of of the view that maybe there's a bit too much confidence in the market about the certainty of a September move."In other currencies, the Australian dollar rose 0.15% to $0.6479, while the New Zealand dollar gained 0.23% to $ Zealand's jobless rate rose slightly in the second quarter as the labour market remained soft, data on Wednesday showed, supporting the view that the central bank will proceed with a flagged 25 basis-point interest cut at its August policy meeting.
