Australia’s eSafety regulator says reports of sextortion and related online sexual extortion are continuing to increase, while it identifies “significant gaps” in how major technology platforms detect and respond to such harm. The regulator’s latest transparency report examines how companies including Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Snap, Discord and WhatsApp address child sexual exploitation and abuse. Across the period assessed, the watchdog reports that more than 2,000 complaints about sextortion-like abuse were made in six months last year. The outlets also report that young men are the most likely age group to report the abuse. The reporting further states that the alleged harm is linked to more than 15 suicides, though the accounts do not specify details beyond that attribution. The regulator’s findings focus on detection and enforcement shortcomings by large platforms, framed as part of ongoing efforts to assess and improve how tech services respond to child sexual exploitation and abuse. The report’s release coincides with renewed attention on the scale of complaints and the need for better safeguards.