Australia Online Safety Information

Information from X

X's purpose is to serve the public conversation. Violence, harassment and other similar types of behaviour discourage people from expressing themselves, and ultimately diminish the value of global public conversation. 

Our Rules are to ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely. We encourage you to review our Rules and policies. We have a range of enforcement options, which we take to reduce the risk of harm to our users, in a proportionate manner. Users can also appeal account suspensions if they believe we made an error. They can do this through the platform interface or by filing a report.

X is a place to share ideas and information, connect with your communities, and see the world around you. In order to protect the very best parts of that experience, we provide tools designed to help you control what you see and what others can see about you, so that you can express yourself on X with confidence and to make sure your experience using the X platform is safe and secure. Please refer to: https://help.x.com/en/safety-and-security/control-your-x-experience for further information.

Our Help Center has tips on using X, and resources to help you stay safe on X. We also suggest staying informed about account safety and security, safeguarding your privacy, avoiding spam and scams, and consider controlling what you see. We provide answers to the most common questions; but if you need account support, submitting a support form ensures your request is routed to the appropriate team. You can always appeal an enforcement decision. 

NOTE: Informational resources available on our Help Center are not intended for law enforcement use and such requests should be directed to X's Legal Request Submission site, available at t.co/lr or legalrequests.x.com.
 

Information for Parents and Carers and young Australian children

X, as a service, is not primarily for children, but anyone above the age of 13 can sign up for the service. We recognise that minors are a more vulnerable group by virtue of their age. The X Rules enable minors to participate in the public conversation freely and safely, and minors should rely on the X Rules (and report to X) in order to protect themselves.

For Australian children under the age of 16, who sign up for X, we have measures in place to make sure their experience using the platform is safe and secure. Here are some key safety and privacy features we have in place:  

  • X’s policies set the minimum age to use the service at 13. X automatically offboards anyone who submits a date of birth meaning that they are under the age of 13.

  • Accounts belonging to known minors will be defaulted to “Protected posts”. This means that known minors will receive a request when new people want to follow them (which they can approve or deny), that their posts will only be visible to their followers, and that their posts will only be searchable by them and their followers (i.e. they will not appear in public searches).

  • Accounts belonging to known minors will be restricted to receiving DMs from accounts they follow by default.

  • While X permits certain types of sensitive media - including consensually produced and shared adult pornography, we prohibit known minors from accessing such media

  • Users can block accounts instantly if they do not want that account to see their posts and/or the user does not want to see the account's posts. Users can also mute an account if they don't want to see their posts, but don't want to unfollow the account.

  • Users can choose who will be able to reply to their posts when posted. The default position is that everyone can reply but options are available to turn off all replies or only allow the accounts mentioned in the post to reply. A user can also change who can reply to their posts, or turn off replies, after the post has been posted. 

  • X allows users to report other users who they believe are under the age of 13. X has set up a dedicated reporting form to permit any user to report an account that they suspect is being used by a minor under the age of 13.

  • X has a policy prohibiting users from promoting or encouraging suicide or self-harm. When someone searches for terms associated with suicide or self harm, the top search result is a notification encouraging them to reach out for help. 

 

Being the target of online abuse is not easy. And at X, we understand that just because the abuse is happening online, doesn’t make it any less real. You can find the following resources to keep your child’s account and experience on X safe, secure and welcoming:

Online Safety in Australia - Industry codes & standards

The Consolidated Industry Codes of Practice for the Online Industry Head Terms and the Social Media Services Online Safety Code apply to X as a provider of a social media service, available to Australian end-users. 

The purpose of the Social Media Services Online Safety Code is to establish appropriate safeguards for the Australian community in relation to certain types of seriously harmful material, namely:

  • Child sexual exploitation material (i.e. material that shows or describes the sexual exploitation or abuse of children);
  • Pro-terror material;
  • Crime and violence material (i.e. material that promotes, incites or instructs in matters of crime or violence, including sexual violence, as well as material depicting excessively gory content, violent accidents, serious physical harm, assault, bestiality or necrophilia); and
  • Drug-related material (i.e. material which promotes or incites drug-related illegal activities, such as selling, buying, or facilitating transactions of drugs and controlled substances, or which depicts, expresses, promotes or encourages the abusive use of proscribed drugs).

Annexure A of the Code further describes all of these types of seriously harmful material.

 

All such material is prohibited on X in Australia

You can report content in violation to X. Please refer to https://help.x.com/en/rules-and-policies/x-report-violation for details and instructions on how to submit a report to X and for an overview of the reporting process.

You can make a complaint about: a) X’s handling of reports of material that is in violation of the Social Media Services Online Safety Code and which is accessible on X; or b) any other aspect of X’s compliance with the Code by making a report to X through this form

 

Information from the Australian eSafety Commissioner

The eSafety Commissioner (eSafety) was established in 2015 and is Australia's national independent regulator and educator for online safety. Its mandate is to ensure Australians have safer and more positive experiences online. You can learn more about the eSafety Commissioner at https://www.esafety.gov.au. For further information on the role and functions of eSafety, please visit https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/what-we-do.  

eSafety helps Australians prevent and deal with harm online. While X’s policies are thorough and encompass content and behaviour that has the potential to cause harm, there may be cases where support from e-Safety may be needed. You can report the following types of online content to eSafety for investigation:

Cyberbullying of a child or young person

If the post has not been actioned by X for violating its Rules after you have submitted a report, and otherwise it fits the checklist set out by eSafety at https://www.esafety.gov.au/report/what-you-can-report-to-esafety#cyberbullying, it can be reported to eSafety for investigation.

Adult cyber abuse

If the post has not been actioned by X for violating its Rules after you have submitted a report, and otherwise it fits the checklist set out by eSafety at https://www.esafety.gov.au/report/what-you-can-report-to-esafety#adult-cyber-abuse, it can be reported to eSafety for investigation.

Image-based abuse

The checklist set out by eSafety at https://www.esafety.gov.au/report/what-you-can-report-to-esafety#image-based-abuse will help you to determine if eSafety is likely to be able to investigate your report on image-based abuse.

Illegal and restricted content 

eSafety also investigates reports from people and law enforcement agencies in Australia about illegal and restricted online content. Anyone of any age who lives in Australia can report illegal and restricted online content to eSafety. Please refer to https://www.esafety.gov.au/report/what-you-can-report-to-esafety#illegal-and-restricted-online-content for further information.  

For further information, please visit https://www.esafety.gov.au/report/what-you-can-report-to-esafety

If you would like to submit a complaint to the Australian eSafety Commissioner, you can do so at the following link, which also provides further guidance about how to report abuse or content to eSafety: https://www.esafety.gov.au/report

The Australian eSafety Commissioner makes available safety tools and resources in order to help Australians have safer and more positive experiences online. Please review the following links for important safety information. Additionally, Australian end-users are able to contact third party services that may provide counseling and support. The links below include a link to a comprehensive list of third party counselling support services compiled by eSafety. 

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/resources

https://www.esafety.gov.au/educators

https://www.esafety.gov.au/young-people

https://www.esafety.gov.au/women

https://www.esafety.gov.au/seniors

https://www.esafety.gov.au/diverse-groups

https://www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/whats-on

https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-issues/esafety-guide

https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/counselling-support-services

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