Online safety leader stares down abuse, death threats
Australia’s first eSafety commissioner is warning that as more women take on public leadership and regulatory roles, they may need similar security protections to elected parliamentarians due to plausible online threats to them.
Julie Inman Grant made history in 2017 when she was appointed to lead the Australian e-Safety Commission, the world’s first government regulatory body dedicated to keeping citizens safer online.
He led major regulatory reforms, including the development of industry standards to address illegal content, age-restricted materials, and AI harms occurring online.
But Ms Inman Grant faced the most significant online threats as she led the implementation of Australia’s ground-breaking social media ban, which delayed children’s access until the age of 16.
Following the ban announcement, billionaire Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, made a public post calling Ms Inman Grant a “commissioner of censorship”.
75,000 posts were sent to him in 24 hours; 80 percent of these were poisonous, harmful and plausible death threats.
Australia’s first female prime minister spoke with Julia Gillard Women DeliverMs Inman Grant said her personal information had been deleted and deepfakes and death threats had been made against her.
The pair’s conversation was part of a live recording of Ms Gillard’s podcast, A Podcast of One’s Own.
“It is gendered and designed to wear you down, just like other sexualized, violent online abuses that play on sexist standards,” she said.
“My problem is that they are slandering my children and family members… this makes you sit back and leave, am I endangering my family and children and how can I protect them?”
Doxxing is a form of online harassment in which a person’s private information, such as their home address, phone number or photos, is published without their consent.
Ms. Inman Grant noted that there are security protections for elected officials who may face similar threats through their work, but the same is not true for regulators.
“There are protections afforded to elected members of parliament and I support them, but there are not the same protections afforded to regulators like me,” he said.
“I’m a new case because I don’t think there are many regulators around the world who are taking notice from Elon Musk.
“This comes at a cost, but what (the perpetrators) don’t realize is that the more they target me, the more I investigate.”
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