The Online Safety Act
As you may have seen in the news this week, Ofcom, the media regulator, has published draft codes of practice requiring technology firms to adopt more robust age-checking measures and to reformulate their algorithms to steer children away from what it is calling “toxic material”.
The Online Safety Act, which is not likely to take effect until the second half of 2025, will put the onus on social media firms and search engines to protect children from some legal-but-harmful material.
Platforms will also have to show they are committed to removing illegal content, including:
Child sexual abuse |
Controlling or coercive behaviour |
Extreme sexual violence |
Promoting or facilitating suicide or self-harm |
Animal cruelty |
Selling illegal drugs or weapons |
Terrorism |
While we know that we cannot stop children from going online, the NSPCC strongly recommends that parents and carers show an interest in what they are doing online and talk to them about how to stay safe.
If you are interested in knowing more, the NSPCC’s “” is a really helpful and useful document which also signposts a number of other resources for parents and children.
BBC Breakfast ran an excellent extended report about this subject on Wednesday morning which was extremely hard hitting and made for difficult but enlightening viewing.
If you didn’t get the opportunity to see it, I would urge you to watch it on catch up via the BBC iPlayer.