Young men report more ‘sextortion’ than any other age group, Australia’s online safety watchdog says

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, pictured, said the findings show the watchdog hasn’t ‘seen adequate responses, despite the technology being readily available’. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPIMAGE/AP View image in fullscreen Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, pictured, said the findings show the watchdog hasn’t ‘seen adequate responses, despite the technology being readily available’. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPIMAGE/AP Young men report more ‘sextortion’ than any other age group, Australia’s online safety watchdog says In six months last year, more than 2,000 such complaints were made to eSafety Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A new report by Australia’s online safety regulator has found “significant gaps” in how major tech platforms tackle online sexual extortion and child sexual exploitation, as “reports of this abuse continue to rise”. The findings come from eSafety’s latest transparency report, examining how tech companies – including Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Snap, Discord and WhatsApp – are addressing child sexual exploitation and abuse. Between July and December 2025, more than 2,000 complaints of sexual extortion were made to eSafety. While men aged 18 to 24 made the most complaints of any cohort, accounting for about 800 reports, younger teens were increasingly being targeted, the regulator said. Sexual extortion – also known as “sextortion” – is a form of blackmail where a person threatens to share a nude or sexual image or video unless the victim gives in to their demands. Instagram and WhatsApp were the most frequently cited platforms, appearing in more than 1,300 complaints combined. For users under 18, Apple’s iMessage and Snapchat were the services most commonly linked to threats of sexual extortion. Among the comments sent to victims by criminals who have their intimate content, as cited by the regulator, were: “I have everything to ruin your life”, “only money can help you now to end this peacefully” and “do you want me to delete your video scandal”. eSafety said the latest responses, collected as part of the platforms’ mandatory safety reporting, revealed “persistent safety gaps in the detection and prevention” of child sexual exploitation and abuse online. The watchdog said the findings pointed to “serious gaps” in the use of available detection technologies such as language analysis that can identify well known coercion scripts used by sexual extortion offenders. The report also found a “lack of proactive detection tools” in live streaming features, with most platforms lacking the mechanisms to identify abuse in video calls and live streams. Microsoft was the only company that reported using both technologies. The eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said the findings show that the watchdog hasn’t “seen adequate responses, despite the technology being readily available”. “Offenders are continuing to exploit gaps in platform design, weak detection systems and inconsistent safeguards to move seamlessly between services and escalate harm against children,” she said. “This report shows that platforms could and should be doing a lot more to prevent these harms and there are simple steps they can take today to protect users.” The University of Sydney academic Dr Joanne Gray said one of her biggest concerns was that the platforms “still tend to be taking a reactive approach” rather than a preventive one. “They are taking it down when they find it or are made aware of it, but they are not doing enough to prevent it from being there in the first place,” she said. Gray said this approach fell short of protecting users and that greater effort needed to go into embedding safeguards into the design of services. “These technology companies are investing billions of dollars in innovating and creating all sorts of new technologies, and if they want to provide live-streaming services, then they need to do so in a way that is safe and responsible … if they can’t, then don’t allow live streaming,” Gray said. Explore more on these topics Technology Social media ban Online abuse news Share Reuse this content