‘Very ambitious’ online safety rules will protect under-18s, Ofcom boss says

The head of online safety regulator Ofcom has defended the Online Safety Act, saying the “very ambitious” rules will help protect children.

Some campaigners have suggested the incoming online safety laws do not go far enough to regulate big tech platforms and stop young people seeing harmful content.

But speaking to LBC’s Nick Ferrari at Breakfast programme as part of the station’s Online Safety Day, Dame Melanie Dawes said the new laws would require sites to remove illegal content as well as limit and restrict other harmful content.

“So, what the law does, is it says that content that’s illegal, so that’s things like terrorist material, also abusive images of children and so on, that must just not be allowed on platforms, and if anything gets through, it needs to be taken down quickly,” she said.

“But it’s also very clear that our under-18s deserve a very different experience than the one they’re getting now.

“So, no pornography, no suicide and self-harm material, and significant down ranking of things like violent content, misogyny, racist content, and so on.

“So, it’s a pretty broad, I should say, very ambitious, what the UK is trying to do here. No one should be under any illusions about that.”

Under the incoming Online Safety Act, social media platforms will be required to abide by Ofcom codes of practice on a range of online safety issues, with large fines among the possible penalties for those who breach the new rules.

However, some campaigners have warned that the current approach is too narrow, and sites will be able to make themselves compliant simply by following Ofcom’s “checklist” of codes and not by expanding their safety tools.

Dame Melanie said “above all”, she wanted to see platforms make their services “safer”, and said parents also had a role to play.

“I think there is a really important role for parents here. And when their kids are signing up to a social media account at 13, which is the minimum age that most of those companies say that they stick to, that’s another thing that I think we need to improve on, that they really do what they say, I think the role of parents in being part of that is quite important.

“But at the same time, what we don’t want to do, is what some of the platforms would say, as long as there are parental controls, then everything’s fine. And I would say, no, you’re not actually following your own responsibilities there.

“Parents need to be part of this. Children can do things to keep themselves safe. But above all, I want the platforms to make the service safer.”