Social media needs regulation to keep users safe, says Ofcom chief

Social media companies have not taken the safety of their users seriously up to now and regulation is needed to ensure they do so in future, the head of Ofcom has said.
Melanie Dawes, chief executive of the communications regulator, told the The Times Tech Summit that while social media undoubtedly brought benefits, there was no doubt improvements were required to protect users from harm.
“The reality today is that we do see that there is a lot of harm going on in different types through all the social media, search and gaming services that we all enjoy,” she said.
“There’s a huge amount of benefit as well. But we have reached the point where everybody expects across the industry that we can do better than this.”
The Online Safety Act, most of which is expected to come into effect in the UK next year, will grant Ofcom sweeping new powers to regulate content on social media and other online services.
She added that in the new year, companies in the scope of this regulation would need to do the first assessments of the risks of there being content on their sites which is illegal and would then have a few months before they would have to approach the regulator to discuss whether or not they have to put measures in place to mitigate that risk.
The UK has embarked on a comprehensive policy of internet regulation over the past several years with efforts focused on two main areas.
Ofcom will be responsible for enforcing and policing the recently passed Online Safety Act, while the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been granted new powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act to enforce competition in the digital space.
Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said the UK was leading the way in terms of tech regulation. “Many of the issues that we look at are global issues and we’ve seen action both by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice in the US, with the recent litigation in the US against Google, and we’ve seen the Digital Markets Act in the EU,” she said.
“All of these activities are focused principally at the same concerns. What I think we have in the UK actually is something which should be faster than the many, many years of litigation that we see in the US, and something that is more bespoke than the quite rigid one-size-fits-all that we see in the EU.”
Dawes was also recently named as a contender to replace Simon Case as cabinet secretary after he announced his intention to leave the role on health grounds.
However, speaking to Times Radio later in the day she said she was “100 per cent focused” on her role. “I am very happy with what I’m doing now at Ofcom,” she said. “I love my job and I hope that’s come across in our conversation. So as far as I’m concerned, I have a lot to do still at Ofcom over the next couple of years.”