UK media watchdog, Ofcom, calls for stronger reforms as social media platforms found to be failing to protect children from harmful content.
British media watchdog Ofcom has released a report outlining failings from social media platforms in protecting children and implementing adequate safeguards.
The regulator called out TikTok and YouTube specifically for failing to “commit to any significant changes to reduce harmful content being served to children, maintaining their feeds are already safe for children”, which contradicts Ofcom’s “wealth of evidence” that suggests they are “still not safe enough”.
The report highlighted changes Meta is looking to implement, including a new 13 plus ‘movie-style’ content settings – currently available on Instagram – that will be rolled out across Facebook. While this is welcomed, it cautioned that it was too early to tell whether it could reduce harm.
In contrast TikTok and YouTube have made no new commitments around safeguarding.
This comes after a California jury found Meta platforms were designed to be addictive and were negligent in operating a product, which harmed children and teenagers, and failed to warn them of the dangers of use. In another case, whistleblowers reported TikTok and Meta risked user safety to fuel their algorithms.
“Historic lack of action by tech firms to tackle this is deeply concerning,” the OfCom report stated.
“Despite the national debate about the safety of children on these services, the lack of tangible improvements for children in our research suggests that, taken together, services have not to date made the scale of changes that are required.”
The report sets out a number of actions that each social network has committed to taking to protect young users, with some going further than the legal requirements – volunteering to notify the regulator of significant changes in risk assessments.
A long way to go
The research showed that nine in 10 children aged 8-12 are using online services that have a minimum age requirement of 13, which makes the findings of safety failings even more pertinent.
Ofcom noted that Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, all acknowledged the importance of having a minimum age restriction, but the regulator is “not current convinced” that platforms are effectively preventing those under 13 from accessing the sites and apps.
“When harmful content is recommended to children, it is not by the choice of the child, it is by the design of the platform. Content feeds are a primary pathway to harm, and platforms must urgently fix this,” the watchdog said.
“We are therefore seriously concerned by the responses to the safer feeds demand. Overall, the responses failed to set out how the services will make feeds safe for children to use and reduce the harm that children experience.”
Social media ecosystems are no longer just the platforms and the users, but now involve thousands of third parties like advertisers, brands, affiliates, and more.
While social media platforms have an incentive to draw young people onto their sites with addictive content, harmful content can damage consumer trust, brand safety, thus becoming unsafe for users.
Social media advertising is a key facet of marketing strategy in the modern era, but brands will soon have to weigh up the potential brand protection risks with the benefits to reaching social media’s active audience.
