Australia’s internet regulator eSafety says major online platforms are not using available technologies to prevent or detect child sexual abuse and online sexual extortion. In a transparency report, eSafety states that companies including Google, Meta, Snap, Microsoft and Apple show “significant gaps” in their responses. The regulator says platforms fail to apply tools that can identify well-known coercion scripts used by sexual extortion offenders, despite evidence and guidance provided to companies. It also cites persistent shortcomings in reporting tools, including unclear or hard-to-find ways to report sexual extortion or child abuse, and the lack of dedicated reporting categories on some services such as WhatsApp, iMessage, Discord and Google Messages. The report addresses sexual extortion as online blackmail involving the sharing or threatening to share intimate material to force victims to comply. eSafety says it received more than 2,000 complaints about sexual extortion between July and December 2025, with the most affected age group being 18 to 24. It adds that some improvements have been noted—for example, actions by Google and Snap to proactively detect known child sexual abuse material, Discord blocking links to abuse content, Meta using new tools to detect grooming, and Microsoft detecting live abuse in video calls. The findings come as Australia expands regulatory powers to pursue tech companies in court for noncompliance.