Australia’s internet watchdog has said the world’s biggest social media firms are still "turning a blind eye” to online child sex abuse material on their platforms, and said YouTube in particular had been unresponsive to its inquiries.
In a report released on Wednesday, the eSafety Commissioner said YouTube, along with Apple, failed to track the number of user reports it received of child sex abuse appearing on their platforms and also could not say how long it took them to respond to such reports. The Australian government decided last week to include YouTube in its world-first social media ban for teenagers, following eSafety's advice to overturn its planned exemption for the Alphabet-owned Google's video-sharing site.
"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,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement.
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