Regardless of the UK’s obvious arduous stance to defend the OSA, Trump has steered that there is a “excellent likelihood” the US will make a cope with the UK to protect an allyship that each international locations will anticipate to be essential to sustaining tech dominance.
Ofcom guarantees “swift motion”
Ofcom stated that each one platforms have till March 31 to ship accomplished threat assessments and must be ready right now “to start out implementing acceptable measures to take away unlawful materials rapidly once they develop into conscious of it, and to cut back the chance of ‘precedence’ felony content material from showing within the first place.” These stories will probably be posted on Ofcom’s website to make sure transparency and accountability.
Platforms have been requested to make eradicating little one sexual abuse supplies (CSAM) the highest precedence after the Web Watch Basis flagged essentially the most CSAM in its historical past final yr—uncovering over 290,000 webpages containing CSAM in 2024.
Transferring ahead, Ofcom will probably be monitoring compliance, “launching focused enforcement motion the place we uncover issues,” their announcement stated. Suzanne Cater, Ofcom’s enforcement director, beforehand promised “swift motion,” and Ofcom seems ready to ship on that promise.
“We won’t hesitate to open investigations into particular person providers,” Ofcom stated, forecasting, “we anticipate to make extra bulletins on formal enforcement motion over the approaching weeks.”
Ofcom chief government Melanie Dawes instructed FT that “there will probably be some [websites] who we have to take sturdy motion towards and we’re gearing up for that now in order that we might be actually quick.”
However concerning X’s anticipated compliance, Dawes simply stated that Ofcom would “ensure that X follows the foundations which have been set down within the act” and takes motion in 2025 to take away extra content material that Musk’s platform could presently not take down, preferring to merely cut back attain of posts thought of “terrible however lawful.” UK security advocates have steered that X could must construct out its little one security crew to take away extra content material, The Telegraph reported.
Ofcom didn’t reply to Ars’ request to touch upon whether or not Ofcom presently has issues about X or some other huge platforms’ compliance, solely re-sharing info from the press launch concerning high priorities as enforcement begins.
“We’re initially prioritizing the compliance of web sites and apps that will current specific dangers of hurt from unlawful content material on account of their dimension or nature—for instance as a result of they’ve a lot of customers within the UK, or as a result of their customers could threat encountering among the most dangerous types of on-line content material and conduct,” Ofcom’s spokesperson stated.