Source · Select Committees · Petitions Committee
Recommendation 2
2
Accepted
As part of its role as the new online safety regulator, we recommend that Ofcom...
Recommendation
As part of its role as the new online safety regulator, we recommend that Ofcom should regularly report on the incidence of online abuse, illegal hate speech, and Violence Against Women and Girls content on the largest social media platforms. This should include disaggregating estimates of the likelihood of a user encountering or being the target of abusive content according to characteristics including race, disability, sexuality, and gender, as well as differentiating between child and adult users. (Paragraph 22) Social media and user safety
Government response summary AI-generated
The government stated the Online Safety Bill will require large service providers to publish annual transparency reports on online harms, and Ofcom will produce its own report, gather data, and conduct risk assessments and reviews to understand prevalence.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted
We thank the Committee for this recommendation. The Online Safety Bill will require the largest service providers to publish annual transparency reports. The Bill sets out a high level list of information that Ofcom can require services to report on. These reports will set out information about the steps these services are taking to tackle harms on their platforms. This includes information about the incidence of illegal and harmful content, information about the processes in place for users to report illegal and harmful content, as well as information on the measures being taken by a service provider to provide for a higher standard of protection for children than for adults. These reports will help Ofcom and users understand the prevalence of online harms and may provide insights into the level of violence against women and girls content online. Ofcom will also produce an annual transparency report which will include information about the contents of the reports services have published. Furthermore, Ofcom will have the power to require services to provide information directly to Ofcom, including to support its research activity, which could also provide insights into violence against women and girls online. Separately Ofcom will carry out risk assessments, covering illegal content, content that is harmful to children and legal content that may harm adults to identify, assess and understand the risks of harm to individuals presented by services. It will publish a register of risks, reflecting the findings of the risk assessments. Ofcom will also carry out regular reviews looking at the incidence and severity of content that is harmful to children and content that is harmful to adults on services. Ofcom will publish a report after each review which will include advice on whether to make changes to priority harms to children and adults. The Online Safety Bill
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