If you use Instagram, WhatsApp, or iMessage, you need to know what is happening on these platforms. Australia’s online safety regulator, eSafety, has published a new transparency report, and the findings are grim.
As reported by The Guardian, the regulator found significant gaps in how the biggest tech companies are handling online sexual extortion and child sexual exploitation, even as the reports keep climbing.
Which apps are criminals actively using for sextortion?
Between July and December 2025, eSafety received over 2,000 sexual extortion complaints. Instagram and WhatsApp were named in more than 1,300 of them combined, making them the most cited platforms by a wide margin.
Men aged 18 to 24 filed the most complaints of any group, with roughly 800 reports. But the regulator noted that younger teens are increasingly in the crosshairs, and for users under 18, Apple’s iMessage and Snapchat were the services most often tied to these threats.
The messages victims receive are chilling. The regulator cited lines like “I have everything to ruin your life” and “only money can help you now to end this peacefully.”
Why aren’t the platforms stopping this?
The frustrating part is that the technology to catch this already exists. Language analysis can flag the well-worn coercion scripts these criminals reuse, and detection tools can monitor live streams and video calls. eSafety found most platforms are simply not using them. Microsoft was the only company that reported using both.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said offenders are exploiting weak detection systems and inconsistent safeguards to hop between services and escalate the harm.
University of Sydney academic Dr Joanne Gray argued the companies remain stuck in reactive mode. “They are taking it down when they find it or are made aware of it, but they are not doing enough to prevent it from being there in the first place,” she said.
It’s clear that these companies need to do better to protect our children. They need to treat them as people and not as revenue-generating assets. And since they are clearly failing to do so, stronger legislation is needed to hold them accountable and better protect children online.
