Australia is giving the internet industry six months to come up with an enforceable code detailing how it will stop children seeing pornography and other inappropriate material online or face having a code imposed on it, a regulator said on Tuesday.
The eSafety Commissioner said it wrote to members of the online industry demanding a plan by Oct. 3 setting out how they plan to protect minors from seeing high-impact material before they are ready, also including themes of suicide and eating disorders.
The code should set standards for how app stores, websites including pornography and dating websites, search engines, social media platforms, chat services and even multi-player gaming platforms check that content is suitable for users, the commissioner said.
"Kids' exposure to violent and extreme pornography is a major concern for many parents and carers, and they have a key role to play," said Commissioner Julie Inman Grant in a statement.
"But it can't all be on them. We also need industry to play their part by putting in some effective barriers," she added.
The demand begins a second phase of industry codes overseen by the regulator which previously endorsed codes covering how internet companies stop the spread of terrorism or child sexual exploitation content.
Measures covered by the code protecting children from pornography could include age verification, default parental controls and software which blurs or filters unwanted sexual content, the regulator said.
A spokesperson for Google, a unit of Alphabet, said the company would work closely with the industry on the new code and a spokesperson for Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said the company continued to engage constructively with the eSafety commissioner.
Representatives of X and app store provider Apple were not immediately available for comment.
A spokesperson for DIGI, an industry body which has most large internet companies as members and worked on the first round of codes, said it looked forward to continuing its engagement with government and the eSafety commissioner.
© Thomson Reuters 2024.
8 Comments
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Ricky Kaminski13
Way overdue.
Daniel Neagari
mmmm... if this was 10 years ago it would be a difficult task... now I suppose you can create an questionare (2 or three questions) multipe choice using AI... something in the sort of the "I am not a robot" check mark thingy
ian
Seems a very tall order.
Classify content, identify categories of users and match
Moonraker
Isn't this kind of thing what the right call "the nanny state"? I am all in favour of it myself but any other policy that involves protecting people against predatory capital is usually disparaged as nannyish by the permanently confused.
Zaphod
Would be great if there was really a technofix to protect children from porn, but sadly there is not. What this law means is once again an excuse for more media censorship.
WoodyLee
""The Safety Commissioner said it wrote to members of the online industry demanding a plan by Oct. 3 setting out how they plan to protect minors from seeing high-impact material before they are ready, also including themes of suicide and eating disorders.""
Well done, some of the violence our children are getting exposed to is beyond DISGUSTUNG, and most of it can be stopped with very simple safety tools but the good old $$$ wont do it.
WoodyLee
It's all about GREED, and nothing more.
Make as much $$$ as they can while they can and to hell with Society and Ethics.
tora
That horse has long bolted. Unless they are going for full censorship of the internet (which I suspect) under the guise of projecting the children. And Australia is not the only one. You can kiss your already limited online freedoms goodbye.