eSafety Commissioner calls for platform accountability in response to bullying review

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant on 9 September 2026 issued a statement welcoming the federal Anti-Bullying Rapid Review and called on social media platforms to take greater responsibility for cyberbullying harm, noting that the Office received over 2400 cyberbullying reports from Australian children and parents in the 2025-26 financial year, a 19 per cent increase on the previous year. Inman Grant stated that the Basic Online Safety Expectations and the Online Safety Act provide existing levers for platform accountability, and urged the rapid review to consider strengthening direct obligations on services to detect and disrupt harmful contact rather than relying solely on user reporting.

Platform obligations are only as effective as the technical systems that deliver them, and user-reporting mechanisms still place the burden on victims to identify, screenshot and escalate abuse after it has occurred. AI detection that operates in real time within messaging environments shifts the locus of responsibility: a system that identifies patterns of coercion, sustained targeting and escalation as threads develop can block hostile contact before it reaches the recipient or surface it to a moderator for immediate review, reducing the volume of completed harm that reaches eSafety's complaints queue. Guardii, backed by Startmate and a Meta Business Partner, provides exactly this capability, analysing direct messages across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and other platforms for harmful patterns, flagging serious interactions and enabling platforms or institutional monitors to intervene before a child is forced to self-report abuse that has already compounded over days or weeks.