Ofcom began enforcing a series of strict new government restrictions brought in by the Online Safety Act in July, including a requirement for any tech social media platform carrying adult material to stop children from accessing it.<\/p>\n
Dawes said the act was working, with the major social media and adult websites having brought in age verification. More than 12 high-risk sites are blocked or are no longer available in the UK, including two suicide forums and at least five pornography sites. Ofcom has also imposed its first fine for not complying, on the US image-based bulletin board 4Chan.<\/p>\n
Dawes said Ofcom would now step up efforts to \u201cpush them on the things that they\u2019re not so willing to do\u201d.<\/p>\n
Content moderation of algorithmically-driven feeds and recommendations for sites such as YouTube, Roblox and Facebook would be scrutinised for adult content, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHave they changed the way the algorithms work so that children don\u2019t get that material shown to them? That\u2019s a big focus for us,\u201d she said. \u201c[Are there] anti-grooming protections in place so that children\u2019s feeds only accept children\u2019s profiles and can\u2019t be directly messaged by people they don\u2019t know?\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of this work, Ofcom can order tech sites to do \u201can algorithmic audit\u201d over these feeds. \u201cYou may see some enforcement action from us in the next few months if we don\u2019t start to get the answers that we\u2019re looking for on the algorithmic side of things,\u201d Dawes added.<\/p>\n
She said the act had seen \u201cgood early progress, but it\u2019s a very, very, very long road ahead\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009we\u2019re trying to turn around a couple of decades where the internet has been age blind\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dawes recently visited firms in California to talk about the rules, including how they relate to AI platforms being developed. There have already been instances where AI chatbots have given problematic answers, while generative AI is now being used in making pornographic content.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c[The US trip] was making it absolutely clear that \u2014 under the OSA \u2014 new services need to be properly risk assessed, including AI,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Dawes said Ofcom already had a relationship with OpenAI, which has agreed that ChatGPT falls under the act. When pushed on X\u2019s Grok, Dawes said that \u201cX is a service that we regulate, and chatbots will often be user-to-user services and therefore caught under the act\u201d.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cOne of the features of generative AI is that it isn\u2019t always possible to predict what it\u2019s going to do and what it\u2019s going to say, and that\u2019s why safety needs to be considered up front. The industry did not get this right 20 years ago when social media was first launched.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ofcom has been a target for rightwing lobby groups from the US as well as Republican politicians given what they see as a threat to freedom of speech under the act.<\/p>\n
Republican politicians, including Senator Scott Fitzgerald and Congressman Jim Jordan, have accused the Online Safety Act of being a \u201ccensorship law\u201d and the topic has been raised in US-UK trade negotiations.<\/p>\n
Dawes declined to comment on a social media post this week by US billionaire Elon Musk that \u201ccivil war in Britain is inevitable\u201d<\/a>. His X platform said the Online Safety Act risks \u201cseriously infringing\u201d free speech.<\/p>\n Recommended<\/p>\n Dawes confirmed that Ofcom had met the House of Representatives judiciary committee in July, saying that bodies engaged in \u201ccivil and constructive dialogue\u201d. She added that \u2014 as in the UK, where the motivation to protect children under the act remains popular \u2014 in Washington \u201cthere\u2019s a lot of support for protecting children online\u201d.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cWe\u2019re here to deliver for the British public. There\u2019s a lot of public support in this country for the changes that we\u2019re trying to bring about. If anything, people are asking us to do more and faster.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/images.ft.com\/v3\/image\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2F9ef62f.jpeg\")
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