HOLDING GOVERNMENT AGENCIES & NON-PROFITS TO ACCOUNT (updated as the process unfolds)

back to 'thoughts'

how will the cards fall? (and who will turn out to be the joker?)

So far – during a mini campaign triggered by the increasing use of AI image generating models to oversexualise and objectify women – six of the 13 organisations/individuals I’ve contacted have acknowledged my emails (four in ways tending to confirm that the issue may merit serious attention).

Although the AI image generating community ‘art’ platform from which most images on this website are drawn is based in Australia, its subscribers are mainly American – which is why I contacted organisations located in those countries. They’re identified below (bearing in mind that my initial correspondence focused on images with possibly negative implications for child safety):

Australian government agencies:

child safety

eSafety (enquiries@esafety.gov.au ) (July 2025)

Dear Pam,

Thank you for responding and providing additional detail.

If you are concerned that NightCafe may have breached an industry code, you can find information here on how to make a formal complaint - Industry codes and standards complaints | eSafety Commissioner. Please note that eSafety is only able to receive complaints from Australian residents.

Regards,

eSafety Enquiries

women objectification

Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (info.centre@accc.gov.au) (October-November 2025) (closed)

Dear Pamela

Thank you for writing to us about NightCafe Studio. We have recorded the details of your report. Below is some information that we hope you will find helpful.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is responsible for the regulation of broadcasting, the internet, radiocommunications and telecommunications.

You can find out about the types of complaints it handles or lodge a complaint on its website or by calling 1300 850 115 for more information.

Not ACCC: issue outside of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010

From the information you have provided, the concerns you have raised appear to fall outside of the laws we administer. The Australian Consumer Law provides Australians with broad consumer protections including the right to truthful and accurate representations, fair treatment and consumer guarantees. You can read more about consumer rights on our website. If you have information that you believe may indicate a breach of these laws, we welcome you to submit it to us. (submitted and acknowledged)

Your report: what the ACCC does with this information

The ACCC uses reports from the public, as well as other sources of intelligence, to inform our enforcement work. You can read more about how we prioritise our work on our website.

Please note, the ACCC generally does not comment on our work or what we do with the information we receive from reports. We will only contact you again if we require further information.

To keep up-to-date on public announcements from the ACCC, you can subscribe to our email alerts.

We hope the information we have provided is helpful.

Yours sincerely

Peter

Public Information Officer | Infocentre Australian Competition and Consumer Commission 23 Marcus Clarke Street Canberra 2601 www.accc.gov.au T: 1300 302 502

My response:

Dear Peter

Thank you for your feedback.

Having visited the Australian Communications & Media Authority website, my sense is that their complaints service focuses on more tangible, technical issues such as broadcasting reception, cabling, labelling, spam and gambling. A search for AI and related issues tended to suggest that they fall outside the authority’s remit.

I do know from a 2012 Australian Law Reform Commission report that provisions for regulating AI image generators may eventually feature in amendments to the Classification of Media Content Act. With that in mind, I shall share my concerns with them.

Meanwhile, as a paying NightCafé subscriber, I do believe my rights as a consumer of their services have been violated.

I expressly opted for a safe browsing option in my account settings. NightCafé’s classification of scantily clad ‘pin-up girls’ posing suggestively as safe viewing means that those types of images:

·       are not filtered out during website ‘explore’ page browsing sessions for any subscribers opting for safe viewing, and

·       are included in the voting phase of official and community-hosted challenges, despite NSFW image entries being prohibited by challenge rules.

As a result, I see these types of images regularly – which I find offensive.

In addition, new subscribers are not notified of the measures in place enabling them to report NSFW images missed by the auto-moderator. To some extent this is covered in guidelines for chat room hosts and a chatroom host handbook, which ChatGPT brought to my attention. However, there are no guidelines for ordinary subscribers. NightCafé’s community standards simply refer to the right to report without explaining how this should be done.

Among other things, the 2012 Australian Law Reform Commission report notes that, in the case of “platforms that host millions of hours of user-generated content, it may only be reasonable to expect them to have in place processes to readily identify adult content after it has been published. Major content providers, for example, might have mechanisms that allow users to ‘flag’ content as adult or ‘inappropriate’”. As you will gather from the remainder of this email and related attachments, the measures available to NightCafé users wishing to ‘flag’ NSFW content in daily and community-hosted challenges are far from clear.

Under a section headed “What's allowed, and what's not?” and the sub-heading “NSFW (Not Safe For Work)”, NightCafé’s community standards acknowledge that “many young children use NightCafé (with and without parental supervision)” and that they “want to keep it safe and appropriate for them”. In that context, surely scantily clad ‘pin-up girls’ posing suggestively should be classified NSFW? The eSafety Commissioner’s industry Phase 1 Standards (Class 1A and 1B Material) Regulatory Guidance booklet does appear to suggest so – nevertheless acknowledging the complexities of balancing the right to freedom of speech and privacy rights with the right to online safety.

It has taken nearly 12 months to obtain official written communication from NightCafé personnel and moderators on the procedures they expect platform users to follow when identifying and reporting NSFW content. This is outlined in the attached document, on which I have copied reviews submitted to TrustPilot and Google.

As you will see from the TrustPilot review, I have now been temporarily suspended from NightCafé, having resorted last week to creating and publishing caricatures expressing the frustrations outlined above. NightCafé has since removed these images unilaterally. Two downloaded before their unexpected removal are attached, one being animated. Unfortunately, I did not download the others, which depicted a friendly hippo humorously challenging a little red-haired elf (the user I am accused of harassing, thus violating community standards).

I have copies of text correspondence with that user, who blocked me from accessing her gallery during our text exchange. In my caricatures, the hippo asked why – suggesting the elf may have had something to hide. In the description underneath one caricature, I added links to NSFW images in the user’s gallery (which is freely accessible to any browser searching under her pseudonym). Two of the images I used as examples have since been removed from her gallery. The following two remain:

• example 1 

• example 2

I also have copies of text exchanges with NightCafé moderators involved in the same virtual ‘conversation’, as well as a subsequent one in which the official daily challenge NSFW flag was brought to my attention.

Please be aware that, from the time I lodged my first complaint, my expectation was never that the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission would pursue the matter. The website clearly states that acting on behalf of individual complainants is not part of the Commission’s remit. Instead, my complaints were made to alert the Commission to a broader problem affecting NightCafé platform users opting for safe browsing and viewing.

With that in mind, may I appeal to you please to ensure that the information I provided in each report and in this email is shared with other Australian government agencies developing regulations for dealing with AI-generated art.

Sincerely

Pam Saxby

Australian Law Reform Commission (info@alrc.gov.au) (November 2025) (no response)

Senator David Pocock (David Pocock) (Australian Capital Territory/ACT, Australian Senate) (December 2025) (acknowledged, with request for contact details; information provided)

Australian non-profits

Collective Shout (caitlin@collectiveshout.org) (November 2025) (no response)

Our Watch (SugarCRM@ourwatch.org.au) (November 2025) (requested name of platform; information provided)

US government agencies 

US Consumer Sentinel (eConsumer.gov) (November 2025) (acknowledged)

US non-profits

National Center on Sexual Exploitation (November 2025) (public@ncose.com) (acknowledged)

United Nations agencies

UN Inter-regional Crime & Justice Research Institute (November 2025) (unicri.aiforsaferchildren@un.org) (focusing on AI for safer children) (no response)

UN Women (via X) (no response)

https://riseof.ai/speaker/julia-reinhardt/

media

TechCrunch (US technology news and analysis) (follow-up to August 2024 article on NightCafe) (November/December 2025)

email mysteriously disappeared; email resent from a different account; TechCrunch and author, Kyle Wiggers, contacted via X

miscellaneous

Julia Reinhardt, a San Francisco and Berlin-based consultant specialising in AI governance and public policy (November 2025) (responded, suggesting the organisation below)

WOMENxAI (reut@womenxai.com) (November 2025) ('celebrating and empowering women in the dynamic world of AI') (no response)