Social media platforms in the UK could face large fines if they don’t take strong action against illegal content like fraud, terrorism, and child sexual abuse material under new digital safety laws.
New Digital Safety Laws in the UK Target Social Media Platforms
Tech companies must put measures in place to stop harmful content, such as promoting suicide, extreme p*rnography, and selling drugs.
Starting Monday, every site and app covered by the Online Safety Act, over 100,000 services including Facebook, Google, X, Reddit, and OnlyFans, must take action to prevent illegal content or remove it if it appears online.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said that the crackdown on illegal content is “just the beginning.”
“In recent years, tech companies have treated safety as an afterthought. That changes today,” he added.
Companies that fail to follow the act could face fines of up to £18m or 10% of their global revenue. For big companies like Meta (Facebook‘s parent company) and Google, this could mean billions of pounds. In extreme cases, services could even be shut down.
Ofcom, the UK regulator, has set guidelines for tech platforms to follow to avoid breaking the law. The rules cover 130 priority illegal content issues, such as hiding children’s profiles from strangers, letting women block or mute harassers, reporting online fraud, and using “hash matching” tech to prevent the sharing of terrorist content and non-consensual adult movies.
Last year, Ofcom warned that tech companies still had a lot of work to do to meet the requirements of the Online Safety Act and protect users from harmful content. In December, Jon Higham, Ofcom’s online safety policy director, stated that many of the largest and riskiest platforms had yet to implement the safety measures recommended by the regulator.
“We don’t think any of them are doing all of the measures,” he said.
Mark Jones, a partner at the law firm Payne Hicks Beach, described the new illegal harm measures as a “considerable sea change” in how illegal content is handled, as they require tech companies to proactively identify and remove dangerous material.
The Online Safety Act has faced criticism from US Vice President JD Vance, who claimed last month that free speech in the UK was “in retreat.” However, Peter Kyle has insisted that the act will not be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Trump administration over potential tariffs on British exports to the US.
“Our online safety standards are not up for negotiation. They are on statute and they will remain,” Kyle told LBC radio last week. The British government’s stance, which Keir Starmer echoed in Washington last month, is that the act aims to combat criminality, not censor debates.
ALSO READ: LCD vs OLED vs AMOLED: Smartphone Display Technologies Compared
