Campaigners call lack of progress ‘staggering’ as online regulator issues review of first nine months of new regime

But Ofcom found that “at a total level there was no significant change in the proportion of children encountering harmful content over the first nine months after the children’s safety duties came into force in July 2025”.

Examples of harms included children being shown the murder of Charlie Kirk, graphic pornography and weapon-related content making them feel unsafe in their schools and neighbourhoods. Personalised recommendation feeds powered by “for you” algorithms were repeatedly found by Ofcom to be at the root of the continuing tide of harmful material.

“Tech companies have had months to act, yet too many platforms are still built to keep children hooked with their algorithms continuing to push harmful content to their young users,” she said. “We urgently need stronger action from tech companies to rein in features that drive harm to children and stop putting business interests over their safety obligations.”

If you don’t start fining them, they won’t improve. £1000 / day per person.

The regulator is already facing a wave of legal actions from tech companies challenging its powers including the Instagram operator Meta, as well as TikTok and X, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX group. It has warned it risks being “absolutely clobbered legally by deep-pocketed individuals and firms”.

If you’re going to enact a law that makes everybody’s lives worse and destroys privacy, you might as well do a decent job at what the law is intended for.

  • AnticitizenOne@leminal.spaceEnglish
    12·
    1 day ago

    I’ve been having a look at the report, the conclusion is, bizarrely but predictably, that the legislation being completely ineffective means that they need to restrict things even more:

    “We will shortly be publishing our rapid assessment of what highly effective age assurance could look like for determining whether someone is 16 or over and are working closely with the government on the implementation of the expected new restrictions. We will continue to drive compliance with the Online Safety Act for services that fall outside the social media ban and to improve the experience of 16–17-year-olds.”