UK Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza has criticized the effectiveness of the Online Safety Act, citing a lack of meaningful change in platform safety and addictive design. She is now seeking to use statutory powers to compel Ofcom to release platform risk assessments to better evaluate regulatory efficacy.
The criticism of the Online Safety Act implementation signals a growing rift between UK safeguarding officials and the primary media regulator. While Ofcom has investigated X over Grok and fined AI nudification sites, the Commissioner’s demand for risk assessments suggests that current transparency levels are insufficient for public oversight. This friction highlights a shift in regulatory focus from reactive content removal to proactive design mandates, similar to recent Meta social media settlement made by Meta in the US. For streaming and social platforms, this indicates that technical design choices—not just moderation policies—will face increasing scrutiny. Watch for whether the House of Lords committee intervenes to grant the Commissioner access to Ofcom’s restricted platform data.
The Online Safety Act implementation has drawn scrutiny beyond the Children's Commissioner's office. In June 2026, Ofcom published its first set of illegal content duties guidance requiring platforms to conduct risk assessments and implement proportionate safety measures, with the regulator setting a compliance deadline that triggered formal enforcement powers for the first time since the Act received Royal Assent in October 2023. The Act's phased rollout means that while illegal content duties are now in force, the child safety duties and category-based obligations for large platforms remain in various stages of implementation, creating a window where enforcement gaps are most visible to critics like de Souza.
Meta has already faced direct regulatory pressure under the Online Safety Act framework. Ofcom opened a formal investigation into X (formerly Twitter) in early 2026 over its AI chatbot Grok generating harmful content, marking one of the first high-profile enforcement actions under the new regime. Meanwhile, Meta agreed in US litigation during 2026 to modify Instagram's algorithmic recommendation systems for users under 18, a concession that UK regulators are watching closely as a potential model for design-level interventions under the Online Safety Act. The contrast between US court-ordered changes and the UK's still-developing enforcement posture underscores why de Souza is pushing for access to Ofcom's internal risk assessments.
The technical architecture of platform safety remains a contested area. Ofcom's 2025 research found that age assurance technologies deployed by major platforms still failed to prevent children under 13 from accessing age-restricted content in over 40 percent of test cases, raising questions about whether the Online Safety Act's child safety duties can be meaningfully enforced without stronger technical mandates. The Commissioner's call for design-level intervention aligns with a broader regulatory trend: the EU's Digital Services Act has already required platforms to conduct systemic risk assessments for minors, and the European Commission published its first DSA enforcement report in March 2026 showing that only three of 19 designated very large online platforms had fully implemented age verification systems. For streaming and social platforms operating across jurisdictions, the divergence between UK, EU, and US approaches to algorithmic accountability creates compliance complexity that will only intensify as enforcement matures.
UK Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza has criticized the implementation of the Online Safety Act, arguing it fails to protect minors from harmful content and addictive algorithmic designs. She is now seeking statutory powers to force Ofcom to release platform risk assessments, highlighting a growing regulatory rift over transparency.
Dame Rachel de Souza argues the Act focuses too heavily on content moderation rather than the underlying algorithmic features that drive engagement and harm children.
The Commissioner plans to use statutory powers to force Ofcom to release internal platform risk assessments, which are currently withheld due to legal barriers.
Ofcom cites Section 393 of the Communications Act 2003 as a legal barrier that prevents the disclosure of sensitive tech company safety data.
Meta recently agreed to an $18 billion US settlement involving usage limits and algorithmic opt-outs, which critics view as a more effective design-level intervention than current UK regulatory efforts.
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