Ofcom moves to protect children from ‘toxic algorithms’
New draft rules have been revealed as part of the UK’s Online Safety Act to protect children from harmful content, but some parents believe they don’t go far enough.
Ofcom, the UK’s media and comms regulator, is pushing tech companies to make their services safer for children under new draft rules.
The regulator has published more than 40 practical measures in its draft Children’s Safety Codes of Practice, which detail how it expects online services to protect children. These measures include more robust forms of age verification and minimising children’s exposure to harmful content online.
The measures relate to the UK’s Online Safety Act, a set of rules focused on protecting children from online harm by placing more responsibility on tech companies to prevent and remove illegal and harmful content.
Ofcom’s draft rules would require online services that are at risk of containing harmful content to implement “highly effective age-checks” to prevent children from seeing it. Harmful content includes posts relating to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and pornography.
