Washington [US], October 4: Experts have warned that efforts to pressure online gaming companies to keep children safe on their platforms are falling short and failing to keep up with technological advances.
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"There's an exponential gap, which is that technologies are accelerating much quicker than governments can regulate them," Dr Steven Conway, a senior lecturer for games & interactivity at Swinburne University, told AAP.
In a report released on Friday, the eSafety Commission outlined how four major online gaming platforms had responded to notices it issued in April querying how they were meeting the government's Basic Online Safety Expectations.
The commission found some of the platforms had introduced additional safety mechanisms since receiving the notices, but significant gaps remained.
The report acknowledged changes made by Roblox in response to a court-enforced undertaking issued in August, but Dr Conway said Australia's relatively small size meant there was little incentive for the company to work to meet its online safety standards.
"In various ways, these companies are either not complying or they're not interested in complying with these safety reports," he said.
Dr Dana McKay, an Associate Dean in RMIT's School of Computing Technologies, argued that Australia has more influence than it thinks.
"We might be a relatively small market, but we're world leading in our attempts to actually regulate this stuff and deal with these types of problems," she told AAP.
"Australia's got a bit of a reputation as somewhere that goes actually no, we're not going to put up with this, and makes laws."
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Dr Conway questioned the effectiveness of the commission's broad approach, arguing that it fails to consider the different ways platforms operate.
"They need bespoke tools to figure out what works and what does not work, and to regulate in an appropriate manner for each," he said, comparing it to the government's ban on social media for users under the age of 16.
"At one stage, they were equating Wikipedia with Discord with Reddit, and these are utterly different platforms for communication. They have very little in common, and they do things in a very different way, but the regulators don't understand."
The idea that online gaming platforms are doing everything in their power to protect children from exploitation is laughable, Professor Michael Salter, director of Childlight UNSW, told AAP.
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Referencing the Lantern Project, an industry-wide initiative that allows companies to share data so they can detect predatory adults across platforms, Dr Salter noted that the studios behind both Fortnite and Steam chose not to share data.
"The proposition that they're doing everything they can . is proven to be false by the fact that their safety standards and their investment in trust in safety internally is so variable between companies," he said.
He also noted that Roblox saw a drop-off in platform growth after implementing changes to its safety features.
"What this signals is that gaming companies have a financial investment in an unsafe product, because once they start to build safety into their product, it introduces friction, and it becomes more challenging to grow their platform."
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Dr McKay said that shareholder pressure could be what motivates companies to do more to protect children online.
"I would definitely say they're not interested in protecting children at all, but when they end up paying out $18 billion after a lawsuit, that focuses the mind somewhat," she told AAP, referencing Meta's landmark settlement over claims Instagram harmed children.
"There's a lot of litigation happening, and game companies could find themselves on the end of that as well."
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Cooperation
