Emotional eSafety boss says Jewish community let down by 'loose guardrails'

eSafety commissioner tells royal commission Jewish community let down by cyber abuse scheme Thu 2 Jul 2026 at 5:21pm In short: eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has apologised to Jewish victims of social media harassment who do not meet the regulator's legal threshold for intervention. She became emotional when she fronted the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. Ms Inman Grant says the regulator's high threshold resulted in just 2 per cent of complaints resulting in a removal notice. The head of the online safety watchdog has become emotional while apologising to Jewish victims of social media harassment who do not meet the regulator's legal threshold for intervention. eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant fronted the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, which has been examining efforts to curb online hate. Ms Inman Grant, who formerly worked at X Corp when it was Twitter, said her office had received 108,000 complaints about harmful online content in the year to June 30, 2026. She said it was a significant increase from the 55,000 complaints received the previous financial year. Under the regulator's Adult Cyber Abuse Scheme, officers are empowered to issue an order to remove content if the social media post, message, image or video contains a direct threat of harm against the adult. But Ms Inman Grant said that high threshold resulted in just 2 per cent of complaints resulting in a removal notice to the relevant content creator or platform. She became emotional when she told the commission she regretted the impact these constraints had had on victims of antisemitism in particular. "That's one of the things I regret the most," she said. "We're here to help people and I just want to acknowledge I know that … so many in the Jewish community have been suffering and I'm really sorry about the shortcomings of the scheme when we haven't been able to help." 'We've never had looser guardrails' Ms Inman Grant gave the commission a flavour of the challenges the regulator faces when attempting to get content removed from a platform and measures implemented to prevent the content from being amplified. She said her office fought hard to prevent harmful videos, images and other content from the Bondi Beach terror attack being amplified on X in the wake of the December 14 shooting. "[X Corp] said, 'It is not any worse than you would see in a gore movie' and I said, 'I can't think of anything more horrific for the family members and the Australian Jewish community'," she said. "These are mainstream platforms that are fighting for the right and ability to distribute and monetise this content." Ms Inman Grant said the office of the eSafety Commissioner was relatively small given its remit, with less than 40 investigators currently on its books. She said more resources would help the office better achieve its remit, as would reforms to the Online Safety Act 2021. These included the development of a definition of online hate, changes to the existing complaints schemes and the ability for the regulator to consider the cumulative impact of online harassment that was not overtly threatening violence. But Ms Inman Grant said the responsibility for protecting people online should ultimately rest with the platforms. "Right now, we have an Adult Cyber Abuse Scheme that wasn't created for this purpose so it isn't fit for purpose and I think there are other things we could do to put the responsibility back on the platforms," she said. "We've got the most powerful technology in the world, owned by the richest, wealthiest technologists in the world, but we've never had looser guardrails. "That to me is a recipe for disaster."