The Online Safety Act
The Online Safety Act 2023 is a UK law designed to make online services safer and place greater responsibility on platforms for protecting their users.
It applies to many online services where people can share content or interact with others, as well as search services.
What does the Online Safety Act do?
The Act places legal duties on regulated online services to identify and manage the risk of illegal content and activity on their platforms.
Platforms must assess the risks their users could face and have appropriate systems and processes in place to reduce those risks. Ofcom is responsible for regulating and enforcing the Online Safety Act.
What are priority offences?
The Online Safety Act identifies a number of serious criminal offences as priority offences.
These are offences that platforms are specifically required to consider when assessing the risks on their services and putting appropriate safety measures in place.
Priority offences cover areas including:
Harassment, stalking, threats and abuse
Hate offences
Intimate image abuse
Controlling or coercive behaviour
Fraud and financial offences
Terrorism
Child sexual exploitation and abuse
Sexual exploitation of adults
Firearms, knives and other weapons
Animal cruelty
Encouraging or assisting suicide or serious self-harm
Cyberflashing
This doesn't mean that every piece of content relating to one of these topics is automatically illegal. The content or behaviour must meet the requirements of the relevant criminal offence.
For more information about priority offences and platforms' responsibilities, visit Ofcom's guidance on illegal content duties under the Online Safety Act.
Does the Online Safety Act mean harmful content must be removed?
No, some content can be harmful, upsetting or offensive without being illegal. The Online Safety Act doesn't require platforms to remove everything that someone may consider harmful.
However, platforms also have their own Community Guidelines or Terms of Service, which may prohibit a wider range of harmful content and behaviour than the law does. This means it's still worth reporting harmful content directly to the platform, even if you're unsure whether it is illegal.