Australia's eSafety Commission has criticized major gaming companies like Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, and Steam for insufficient protections against harmful content and child exploitation. The commission found significant differences in how these platforms handle serious issues such as grooming and violent extremist content. It highlighted gaps in their systems related to detecting harmful content, preventing repeat offenders, and sharing information, while also noting that age verification remains a weak point, particularly with Fortnite and Minecraft relying heavily on self-reported user ages.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-10-02,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Story summary
In a recent report, Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant criticized popular gaming platforms Steam, Steam Chat, and Fortnite for significant child safety gaps. The report, compiled using data from October 2025 to March 2026, highlighted that these platforms lack effective methods to detect harmful content, leaving children vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and exposure to violent extremism. Specifically, the Valve Corporation, which runs Steam and Steam Chat, was singled out for not proactively using industry-standard tools to identify child sexual exploitation or violent material in chats. Professor Michael Salter from UNSW emphasized that companies should take responsibility rather than relying on parents to ensure children's safety online.
Written for “Child Safety In Online Gaming” on 2026-10-05,
grounded in this article and the 3 other(s) covering the same event.
Gaming giants told to 'lift their game' on child safety
The eSafety Commission says it has identified gaps in harmful content detection, repeat-offender prevention and information-sharing initiatives in some gaming platforms.
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Cutting corporate tax rate could help lift productivity, Productivity Commission says
The Productivity Commission says its proposal to cut the company tax rate would help with Australia's productivity challenge.
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The commission has previously called for a 20 per cent tax rate on profits for companies with revenue of up to $1 billion, but it was never adopted in May's federal budget.
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On Tuesday, Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock said productivity was "doing nothing", and that stronger productivity would allow more to be produced without adding to inflation.
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Angela Jackson, from the Productivity Commission, says cutting corporate tax rates is one of the easiest ways to lift productivity.
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We did look at the real drop-off that we've seen since the GFC [Global Financial Crisis] in business investment and what we could do to lift that.
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Company tax reform is one of the sort of the easiest ways, if you like, pathways to doing that.
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Leeser calls on PM, minister to visit WA over child protection concerns
Shadow Indigenous Australians Minister Julian Leeser has called for federal agencies to get involved in cases of unsupervised children in WA in state care.
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Up to 15 Aboriginal children, some as young as five, were living unsupervised in a state-owned home in South Hedland.
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Speaking to ABC Radio National Breakfast, Leeser says services across the state and federal government have failed to coordinate.
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He says there has been a failure of welfare checks, and has called on the PM and the federal Indigenous Australians minister to visit the area.
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"The state government now has set up a coordination committee.
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It doesn't include the federal agencies.
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I'd like to see the federal agencies involved as well.
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And I'd like to see the federal minister and the prime minister visit there too," Leeser says.
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Key Event
Gaming giants told to 'lift their game' on child safety
Australia's online safety watchdog has taken aim at some of the world's biggest gaming companies, telling them to step up their protections for children.
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After reviewing their submissions, the eSafety Commission found big differences in how Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft and Steam deal with serious harms including grooming, child exploitation, and violent extremist content.
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It identified gaps in harmful content detection, repeat-offender prevention, and information-sharing initiatives.
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Age checks remain a big issue, with both Fortnite and Minecraft largely relying on users to declare their ages, making it harder to apply age-based protections.
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Valve was singled out as the only platform not using hash-matching, a technology that helps to quickly detect and identify child sexual abuse material.
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eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant says while there's been some improvement to prevent serious harms, she expects services to "lift their game".
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Australian children have a right to play online without being exposed to predators, sexual extortionists, violent extremist content or other harmful material," Inman Grant says.
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"Service providers should leverage systems that actually detect and disrupt serious harms before children are exposed to them.
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This is the first time a gaming audit has taken place under the Online Safety Act, with the proposed Digital Duty of Care bill shifting further emphasis to how platforms prevent harm.
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It's great to have you join us for the final day of the working week!!
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I'm Josh Boscaini joining you live from Parliament House in Canberra, here and ready to bring you all of today's federal politics news.
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The eSafety commissioner has told gaming giants to lift their game and step up protections for children on their platforms.
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Let's get right into the day and see what happens!
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