The office of the eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has already received 200 reports following the implementation of the Adult Cyber Abuse scheme on January 23, 2022.
The scheme, afforded by the Online Safety Act passed last year, gives a safety net to Australian adults who fall victim to serious online abuse if online service providers have failed to act in removing the abusive content. As a safety net, eSafety will investigate the cases and make a ruling, including removing materials that seriously harm adults.
According to a Gizmodo report, eSafety Commissioner Inman Grant revealed before Senate Estimates that the office handled more than 200 complaints since the scheme kicked off last month, including explicit instructions and encouragement for adults to commit suicide, threats of murder, and menacing publication of personal details online, or doxing.
“[The] adult cyber abuse scheme allows us to step in and support people who come to us because they are experiencing serious online harm,” eSafety Commissioner Inman Grant said, as reported by Gizmodo.
eSafety has worked with social media platforms in response to the cases and other harmful content to ensure that harmful materials are quickly removed, with some posts already taken down in less than an hour due to the commissioner's intervention.
However, eSafety head of investigations Toby Dagg said the cases were “quite elevated with respect to the same time of last year,” noting an 85% increase in adult cyber abuse reported year-on-year, mostly because eSafety had received the complaints on an informal basis up until three weeks ago.
Still, the scheme helps “level the playing field,” according to Commissioner Inman Grant, who said: “We believe these robust changes are helping to level the playing field by shifting the burden for online safety away from children, parents, and vulnerable communities and making service providers more accountable for safety protections on their services.”
