Over 500 cases of online harms reported to agency in first two months

Doxing and online harassment made up the bulk of eligible reports submitted to the OSC, which received an equal number of complaints from both men and women.

Ineligible reports include those involving online harms that the OSC plans to deal with at a later date. These include online impersonation, inauthentic material or deepfake abuse, online instigation of disproportionate harm, incitement of violence and enmity, non-consensual disclosure of private information, as well as publication of false material or reputationally harmful statements.

Over 90 per cent of reports deemed eligible were resolved by the OSC. Unresolved cases typically involved unresponsive platforms, websites, or communicators, which the OSC will investigate.

The OSC is backed by the newly-enacted Online Safety (Relief and Accountability) Act, or OSRAA, allowing it to impose penalties if its directions to content creators, forum administrators and platforms for content takedowns or account restrictions are not followed.

These platforms include Facebook, HardwareZone Forums, Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube.

Flouting OSC directions can lead to fines of up to $20,000 and jail terms of up to 12 months for individuals, or fines up to $500,000 for entities. A further fine of up to $50,000 for each day the offence continues may be imposed after conviction.

“The OSC will also consider other options in its toolkit, such as to issue an access blocking order to block a website that failed to comply with a direction issued by the Commissioner,” said OSC.

One of the resolved cases involved a victim of online sexual harassment. Since 2022, she had received unsolicited explicit content.

More than 1,000 AI-generated deepfake nude images and videos of her were also posted across multiple platforms. These were taken down after the OSC issued a direction to the platforms.

Another victim had been harassed, stalked and sent death threats on social media. The OSC directed the platforms to take down the offending accounts, and referred the victim to independent non-profit SHECARES for counselling and guidance.