Tech platforms accused of sexual extortion blind spot

Australians have made more than 2,000 complaints about sexual extortion over just six months, with big tech accused of failing to address significant "blind spots" in detecting abuse.

The eSafety Commissioner has found "serious gaps" in how online platforms are tackling sextortion, despite companies being provided details of well-known coercion scripts and images used in scams.

Young men aged 18 to 24 were the most common victims among the sexual extortion complaints received by the online safety watchdog between July 1 and December 31 last year.

eSafety has also detected an increase in the number of younger teens targeted by scammers, which also makes the crime a form of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

The online watchdog has launched an awareness campaign to inform young men about the dangers and tactics used in sexual extortion cases, including the use of videos featuring AI-generated women to "hook" victims.

The scams typically begin with seemingly harmless conversations before offenders persuade victims to share intimate material and then threaten to share the images unless they are paid.

'I have everything to ruin your life'

Screenshots provided to eSafety's image-based abuse scheme by complainants illustrate the common threats criminals send their victims.

"I have everything to ruin your life," a perpetrator wrote in one message.

"Only money can help you now to end this peacefully," another said.

Other real examples of threats included "I own your video," "I don't f***ing care even if you block me bro I will still spread this," and "if u not answer me u know what will happen to you".

First contact between a criminal and victim most frequently occurred on Tinder, followed by Instagram, Grindr, TikTok and Telegram, according to eSafety data covering complaints received in the six months to December.

Threats were most often made on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, iMessage and then Snapchat.

Blackmailers frequently harvested family and friends contacts of their victims from Instagram, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, TikTok and Snapchat.

Report highlights 'gaps' in platform responses

Apple, Discord, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Snap and WhatsApp are currently required to provide six-monthly updates on their efforts to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse.

In the third of a planned series of four transparency reports, eSafety found Instagram, WhatsApp, Gmail, Google Messages, Discord and Apple's iMessage did not use language analysis to detect extortion attempts, and instead largely relied on users reporting harm.

The regulator has recommended tech companies at least use language detection on parts of their platforms that do not have end-to-end encryption.

Snapchat used language analysis tools only on reports users made to Snap, while Microsoft did deploy the technology on Xbox but not Microsoft Teams.

WhatsApp used signals-based detection to look for words or phrases to identify harmful communities.

eSafety seeing the 'same' extortion scripts

eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said her investigators continued to see the "same" scripts and images being used across multiple scams and said platforms "should be picking this up".

"In several cases, we have provided these platforms with evidence of how their services are being colonised by criminals to devastating impact, with clear guidance on how to stem the abuse," she said.

"Even when we've laid this out, we haven't seen adequate responses, despite the technology being readily available."

Ms Inman Grant said eSafety's findings showed the scale of the challenge and the urgent need for platforms to act.

"We're deeply concerned about the devastating impacts of sexual extortion, which not only target vulnerable individuals but also have profound psychological and emotional consequences for victims and their families," she said.

Ms Inman Grant said sexual extortion often targeted young men, with the goal of criminals being "quick financial gain".

"Perpetrators [use] high-pressure tactics to force victims into paying," she said.

'Beggars belief' technology not used to detect live-streamed abuse

The eSafety report also found gaps remained in detecting other forms of child sexual abuse material and exploitation, including live-streamed sexual abuse in video calls.

Only Microsoft was using proactive detection tools to disrupt video calls streaming abuse material, while YouTube, Facebook Live and Instagram Live used the technology for live-streamed broadcasts.

eSafety found Apple, Google and Microsoft were still not proactively using tools to detect new abuse images and videos on all or parts of their services.

Ms Inman Grant said offenders were continuing to "move seamlessly between services and escalate harm against children" by exploiting gaps in platform design, weak detection systems and inconsistent safeguards.

"Technology already exists to better detect live-streamed child sexual abuse and newly created child sexual abuse material, but it is not being consistently deployed," she said.

"These are some of the most innovative companies on the planet with some of the best minds, we would like to see some of this innovation going into development of new technologies to tackle the worst-of-the-worst online content.

"There are also effective third-party on-device technologies commercially available so it beggars belief that we haven't seen greater adoption of these interventions."