The top content moderator in Australia has given Twitter, Google, TikTok, Twitch, and Discord 35 days to explain how they recognise child abuse material and prevent their algorithms from amplifying it.
Legal notices were issued on the platforms yesterday, “requiring them to answer serious questions.”
The inquiries eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant stated that the questions she asked varied across the key industries and the specific tech titans in them.
Grant is curious about how hash matching, classifiers, and other AI are used to detect hazardous content on social media and messaging platforms.
She has also attempted to change search engines’ long-standing practise of concealing their “method to indexing web sites,” and has questioned Twitter how it can impose harsher compliance measures while reducing its Australian personnel.
On Monday, the watchdog informed a parliamentary inquiry that Twitter’s first responders to harmful content detections in Australia – the employees responsible for both designing and enforcing Twitter’s compliance with the Basic Online Safety Standards – had recently been fired.
“A broad user safety component is one of the essential parts of the basic online safety expectations,” eSafety acting chief operating officer Toby Dagg said at the inquiry examining law enforcement capabilities in connection to child abuse.
“We would argue that sufficiently staffing and resourcing trust and safety personnel is an evident component of that specific piece of the basic online safety requirements,” he continued.
