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<\/p>\nThe head of the online safety watchdog has become emotional while apologising to Jewish victims of social media harassment who do not meet the regulator’s legal threshold for intervention.<\/p>\n
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant fronted the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, which has been examining efforts to curb online hate.<\/p>\n
Ms Inman Grant, who formerly worked at X Corp when it was Twitter, said her office had received 108,000 complaints about harmful online content in the year to June 30, 2026.<\/p>\n
She said it was a significant increase from the 55,000 complaints received the previous financial year.<\/p>\n
Under the regulator’s Adult Cyber Abuse Scheme, officers are empowered to issue an order to remove content if the social media post, message, image or video contains a direct threat of harm against the adult.<\/p>\n
But Ms Inman Grant said that high threshold resulted in just 2 per cent of complaints resulting in a removal notice to the relevant content creator or platform.<\/p>\n
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Ms Inman Grant said more could be done to combat antisemitism online. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
She became emotional when she told the commission she regretted the impact these constraints had had on victims of antisemitism in particular.<\/p>\n
“That’s one of the things I regret the most,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We’re here to help people and I just want to acknowledge I know that \u2026 so many in the Jewish community have been suffering and I’m really sorry about the shortcomings of the scheme when we haven’t been able to help.”<\/p>\n
‘We’ve never had looser guardrails’<\/p>\n
Ms Inman Grant gave the commission a flavour of the challenges the regulator faces when attempting to get content removed from a platform and measures implemented to prevent the content from being amplified.<\/p>\n
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The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion has been examining hateful online messages. (ABC News: Liam Patrick)<\/p>\n
She said her office fought hard to prevent harmful videos, images and other content from the Bondi Beach terror attack being amplified on X in the wake of the December 14 shooting.<\/p>\n
“[X Corp] said, ‘It is not any worse than you would see in a gore movie’ and I said, ‘I can’t think of anything more horrific for the family members and the Australian Jewish community’,” she said.<\/p>\n
“These are mainstream platforms that are fighting for the right and ability to distribute and monetise this content.”<\/p>\n
Ms Inman Grant said the office of the eSafety Commissioner was relatively small given its remit, with less than 40 investigators currently on its books.<\/p>\n
She said more resources would help the office better achieve its remit, as would reforms to the Online Safety Act 2021.<\/p>\n
These included the development of a definition of online hate, changes to the existing complaints schemes and the ability for the regulator to consider the cumulative impact of online harassment that was not overtly threatening violence.<\/p>\n
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The eSafety office fought hard to prevent harmful content from the Bondi Beach terror attack being amplified on X. (Reuters: File\u00a0)<\/p>\n
But Ms Inman Grant said the responsibility for protecting people online should ultimately rest with the platforms.<\/p>\n
“Right now, we have an Adult Cyber Abuse Scheme that wasn’t created for this purpose so it isn’t fit for purpose and I think there are other things we could do to put the responsibility back on the platforms,” she said.<\/p>\n
“When you don’t know when you are going to get an offensive text, or a message or social media post that destroys you inside. Who else do you hold to account for that?<\/p>\n
“We’ve got the most powerful technology in the world, owned by the richest, wealthiest technologists in the world, but we’ve never had looser guardrails.<\/p>\n
“That to me is a recipe for disaster.”<\/p>\n
Ms Inman Grant said the role of the regulator was important given the online environment had never been “more toxic or caustic”.<\/p>\n
“As a regulator in a middle-power country, that’s relatively small, making sure that we’ve got the tools and the resources that we need to take on these powerful companies, I think is even more important,” she said.<\/p>\n
Mixed police relationship with commissioner<\/p>\n
The commission also heard from state and federal police agencies about how information is shared with the eSafety commissioner.<\/p>\n
There were repeated attempts to formalise a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between WA Police and the eSafety Commissioner between 2022 and 2024, but these were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
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WA Police Deputy Commissioner Kylie Whiteley said a memorandum of understanding\u00a0was needed with the eSafety commissioner (ABC News: Rhiannon Shine)<\/p>\n
Deputy Commissioner Kylie Whiteley told the commission restructuring within WA Police during that time coupled with time differences with the east coast meant the project “dropped off the priority list”.<\/p>\n
“We certainly see there is a need to ensure there is an MOU in place and we would be keen to enable that to occur,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t help that there’s time differences from Western Australia to other parts of the country and equally not having a presence that you are able to sit in front of here probably does see things get lost.<\/p>\n
“But I wouldn’t say it has hampered us reaching out and possibly having conversations there’s certainly been good engagement but the MOU hasn’t been finalised.”<\/p>\n