Ofcom Admits Online Safety Laws Have Not Made Children Safer — Nine Months On, the Feeds Look the Same

Photo: RogDel, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) — file photo of children using tablet computers

Britain passed one of the toughest online safety laws in the world, told parents the internet would finally get safer for their children — and then, according to the regulator in charge of enforcing it, almost nothing changed. That is the blunt verdict of Ofcom's first statutory review of content harmful to children, published this week, and it has landed like a stone in Westminster.

At a total level, Ofcom found "no significant change in the proportion of children encountering harmful content" over the first nine months after the children's safety duties under the Online Safety Act came into force in July 2025. Most children in the UK say they have encountered at least one piece of harmful content online in a four-week period. The regulator called the finding "concerning" and said it showed "further progress is needed to protect children online".

Ofcom online safety review: what the numbers actually say

The figures behind that headline are grim reading for any parent. Among 11- to 17-year-olds surveyed in March and April 2026, 49% said they had seen hate content in the previous four weeks, 42% reported body stigma content, and 23% reported depression content. Fourteen percent said they had been exposed to suicide or self-harm content, and 23% to eating disorder content.

Children told researchers the material left them frightened, confused and upset, and around half of teenagers exposed to weapon-related content said it made them feel less safe in their school or neighbourhood. Ofcom was careful to note one limit on its own findings: the review does not judge whether individual platforms are complying with the Act, or whether the safety codes themselves work. It measures what children actually see — and what they see has barely moved.

Why the feeds are the problem, not just the posts

Again and again, the evidence pointed to the same culprit: the personalised "for you" feed. Across several categories, children most commonly said they encountered harmful material through recommendation feeds, rather than by searching for it. Comments, direct messages, group chats and online games played a part too, but the feed — the endless scroll that decides what a child sees next — was the main route in.

That matters because the feeds are a design choice, built to keep children scrolling. Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom's chief executive, told MPs: "We do not see a safety culture from these large social media companies." The regulator has shared its assessment with Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Body stigma and depression content: Ofcom's big recommendation

The review's main recommendation is a change to the law itself. Ofcom advised that body stigma content and depression content — currently classed as non-designated harms, which means firms only have to assess the risk where they have already spotted the material — should be upgraded to priority content. If the Secretary of State accepts the advice, every service children use would have to assess the risk these kinds of content pose and take proactive steps to protect children from them.

Ofcom's reasoning is about volume: body stigma and depression content can create a material risk of significant harm when children encounter them in high volumes, including poorer mental health and body dissatisfaction. A single post might be shrugged off; a feed full of them, day after day, is a different thing entirely.

What happens next: under-16s social media ban on the way

The timing is not accidental. The review lands as the Government prepares to introduce a social media ban for under-16s, alongside extra protections for under-18s. Ofcom said it would shortly publish a rapid assessment of what highly effective age assurance could look like for checking whether someone is 16 or over, and that it is working closely with the Government on the expected new restrictions.

Campaigners did not mince words: The Guardian reported the assessment was branded "staggering", while Linda Jardine of Children First called it "a stark picture of the overwhelming levels of danger that children face on screens".

The platforms will note Ofcom's own acknowledgement of progress in places, including widespread age checks and tougher safeguards against grooming and child sexual exploitation. An Ofcom spokesperson said the industry had been "unregulated and unaccountable for more than 20 years" and that "there is much for the industry still to do".

But that is precisely the point the review makes. Age checks at the door do not help much if the feed inside still serves a 13-year-old a stream of hate, body-shaming and self-harm content. The Online Safety Act was sold as a turning point. Nine months of evidence says the turning point has not arrived yet — and now the question for ministers is whether a ban for under-16s succeeds where the duties so far have not.

Editor's note: we could not verify a suitable video from a reputable outlet for this story, so this article carries no video embed.

Sources

• Ofcom — Report on content harmful to children (first statutory review, section 63)
• Press Association — Online safety laws have so far not helped protect children in UK, Ofcom says
• The Brief — Ofcom Admits UK Children Are Still Exposed to Social Media Harm Under New Rules
• DigWatch — Ofcom publishes first review of content harmful to children
• HotMinute — Big changes coming to what children see online in the UK