Australia’s eSafety commissioner deployed tough new cyber abuse powers for the first time to force Twitter to remove severely harmful content targeting Brittany Higgins and her partner, David Sharaz, last year.
Sharaz lodged a formal complaint to the office of eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, in April last year, asking for an investigation of vitriolic content that Twitter was refusing to act upon, according to correspondence seen by Guardian Australia.
His complaint singled out a highly offensive tweet – which the Guardian has chosen not to republish – that exemplified the widespread abuse and harassment the pair have suffered online.
The commissioner acted quickly in response and intervened using new adult cyber abuse powers to issue a formal notice to Twitter to remove the content.
It was the first time the eSafety commissioner had issued such a notice since the Online Safety Act was enacted in January 2022. The laws allow the commissioner to compel major social media platforms to remove material her office deems to be severe “cyber‑abuse material targeted at an Australian adult”.
The powers can only be used where a platform has refused to act on content that an ordinary person would believe was “intended to have an effect of causing serious harm to a particular Australian adult” and would “regard the material as being, in all the circumstances, menacing, harassing or offensive”.
Upon receipt of the notice, Twitter took down the abusive tweet within 24 hours.
The eSafety commissioner said it could not comment on individual complaints, but its intervention, until then unprecedented, shows the seriousness of the abuse directed at Higgins and Sharaz.
A spokesperson for the commissioner said more generally that it had only used the powers six times since they were enacted roughly one year ago. In each of the six cases, the commissioner’s intervention had resulted in either the removal of material or geo-blocking the content.
“The adult cyber abuse scheme gives Australian adults somewhere to turn if an online service provider has failed to act on a report of seriously harmful online abuse,” a spokesperson said.
“Adult cyber abuse can have a long-lasting impact on the targeted person’s sense of safety, self-esteem, mental health and physical wellbeing, especially when part of a broader pattern of abuse and harassment.”
The reforms enacted last year also gave the eSafety commissioner broader powers to act on cyberbullying.
Inman Grant, the eSafety commissioner, has previously told the Guardian that her agency had probed more than 1,680 cyberbullying complaints and made more than 500 removal requests to online platforms in the first 12 months since the Online Safety Act changes.
Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation proceedings against News Corp and Network Ten are set to be brought back to the federal court on 28 April for a key ruling that will determine whether his case can proceed.
Lehrmann is seeking to extend the usual 12-month time limit that applies to defamation proceedings so that he can sue News Corp and Network Ten for their initial reporting of Higgins’ allegations of rape – allegations he has always denied.
At a hearing last month, Lehrmann argued that he was delayed in bringing proceedings due to prior legal advice, the prospect of a criminal trial and his mental health.
But lawyers for News Corp, Network Ten, Samantha Maiden and Lisa Wilkinson argued it was not reasonable for Lehrmann to have delayed the proceedings, saying he did nothing, despite being “acutely aware” that he was in a position to sue for defamation.
Justice Michael Lee will hand down his decision at midday on 28 April.
Lehrmann pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent. His first trial in the ACT supreme court was aborted due to juror misconduct, and prosecutors did not proceed with a retrial due to fears over Higgins’s mental health.
