Chair, members, I’d like to begin by acknowledging this sensitive and pivotal moment for Parliament.
Over the past week, we have seen an important public conversation about how online interactions can translate into real-world harm.
We have heard from current and former politicians across Parliament. AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett has also drawn a direct link between inflammatory political discourse and threats against parliamentarians. The AFP Commissioner and I discussed these very issues in March.
I have been warning about the gravity of gendered online violence since 2018, when my office began seeing escalating abuse targeting women in the public eye, across politics, media, entertainment and sport.
I saw this vile harassment first-hand at Twitter more than 15 years ago. What has become increasingly clear is that abuse manifests differently against women and girls than it does against men.
It is sexualised. It is violent. It includes rape threats against the target and death threats against her children. It goes after her age, her appearance, her weight, her supposed virtue and even her fertility. And it has a purpose: to silence women, drive them from online spaces and, ultimately, out of public life.
Violent and targeted online abuse intended to cause serious harm is not a product of free expression. It is designed to suppress speech.
That is precisely why Parliament drew a line in 2021 around where online discourse becomes serious harm, through the Adult Cyber Abuse Scheme.
We have always been clear that the threshold is high. That means we can act as a safety net only in the most violent and egregious cases, after the harm has been done.
But if we are honest, these regulatory tools do not reflect the way online abuse proliferates on platforms today. We have effectively been given a fly swatter to contain swarms of killer bees.
That is why I looked to build other interventions, including the Women in the Spotlight program in 2018, to help women in the public eye manage online abuse more effectively.
As online threats evolved, we knew women needed more tools to protect themselves. So, we expanded the program to include social media self-defence training, helping Australian women recognise emerging threats and how to build their psychological armour.
Through this training, we also help women assess whether online abuse could escalate into real-world harm and identify clear pathways to eSafety and police when threats become credible. We deliver bespoke eSafety webinars and face-to-face training, including with partners such as Pathways to Politics and Women for Election.
We also saw the next wave of gendered abuse coming. In 2020, our Tech Trends and Challenges program warned that deepfakes would disproportionately impact women and girls. They have.
We worked with Government to ensure that synthetic child sexual exploitation and deepfake image-based sexual abuse were covered in our complaints schemes – and have a 96% success rate in getting this devastating content taken down.
In 'eSafety Commissioner v Rotondo', we took action, and we won, against a particularly pernicious perpetrator who targeted women in this very chamber with deepfake image-based sexual abuse. It sent a clear message: tech-facilitated abuse cannot be committed with impunity.
Cancel culture and vilification have made the environment dangerously febrile for women in senior government roles. And when public officials are used for political point scoring, a target goes on our backs, and we are subjected to an onslaught of online abuse and threats. Actions like this can have dangerous and escalating consequences for not just female politicians but senior government officials.
As many of you know, this has been the normal state of affairs for me and my family for years. Yet somehow this is meant to be accepted as part of public service? We need to do more for the next generation of leaders, who currently have little reason to feel safe or protected in online spaces or in public-facing roles.
Social media is no longer the once-envisioned digital town square. It has become more like a gladiatorial arena.
Meanwhile, platforms continue to roll back abuse and violent-speech policies and let some of the most egregious offenders out of digital jail. In this highly charged environment, our complaints schemes are not designed to operate at the velocity and scale at which abuse is hurled, or to tackle the opaque algorithms amplifying it.
That is why I believe eSafety needs a range of interventions: a digital duty of care, but also stronger tools and protections for individuals, including a private right of action and legislation tailored to increasingly violent and threatening online hate.
For example, in my witness statement to the Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion, I proposed a targeted code aligned with the digital duty of care that could apply to caustic antisemitic content and other forms of online vilification.
While broader reforms are considered, we will keep taking reports under our existing schemes and, within the scope of our powers, help as many Australians as we can.
And we know the vast majority of Australians want a safer internet, particularly for their children. That is exactly what eSafety was set up to deliver.
Since our last Estimates appearance, we have initiated several enforcement activities under the Online Safety Act and released new educational resources. I’d like to update the Committee on that work.
Since June, three more AI-powered ‘nudifying’ services have withdrawn their services from Australia following enforcement action through our online safety codes. In total, eight of the most widely used services have either withdrawn access from Australia or taken steps to comply with their obligations under the Online Safety Act.
We commenced civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court against Telegram, for its alleged failure to detect and remove pro-terror material from the platform, and we secured court-enforceable undertakings from Roblox to put in place robust measures to protect children from grooming, sexual exploitation and abuse.
We used our transparency powers to expose what the world’s largest online gaming service providers are, and are not, doing to protect users from serious online harms.
Alongside enforcement, prevention and education remain just as critical. Our Be Connected digital literacy program for senior citizens has now reached 3 million users.
We reached over 650,000 young men with life-saving sexual extortion prevention messaging and support.
In the last financial year, the eSafety website had 14.4 million visitors. Our webinars and digital campaigns reached 4 million Australians, including more than 1.7 million people through our Trusted eSafety Providers.
We also released online safety advisories and new research, sparking important conversations across the education community. This included research on AI chatbots and companions, guidance for parents on discussing the manosphere with their sons, practical guidance for schools on safely hosting student imagery in the age of AI, and advice on invasive technologies such as smart glasses.
In closing, it has been the honour of my professional life to serve as Australia’s eSafety Commissioner for the past decade, leading the world’s first online safety regulator and building the foundations for a stronger, innovative regulator ready for the challenges ahead.
I will leave this role next year with deep respect for the Australians who come to us for help, and immense pride in my staff, who meet that responsibility every day. Their tireless effort, commitment and passion for our mission have been unwavering.
There has never been a more critical time for Australia to have a well-resourced online safety regulator with the right tools to tackle the much more complex and challenging world of AI.
Thank you.
