Landmark online safety measures have failed to limit the proportion of children suffering harm from social media, the UK’s online regulator has admitted, in an assessment branded “staggering” by campaigners.
The proportion of children being fed unsafe content that often left them frightened, confused and upset, was almost unchanged, according to an Ofcom review of the first nine months of supposedly strict requirements on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.
Under the Online Safety Act, the tech giants had to protect children from harmful content including pornography, serious violence, suicide material, racism, misogyny and bullying, with a series of specific duties introduced in summer ۲۰۲۵.
But Ofcom found that “at a total level there was no significant change in the proportion of children encountering harmful content over the first nine months after the children’s safety duties came into force in July ۲۰۲۵”.
It called the finding “concerning” and said there was no evidence indicating a change in the severity of harm since the flagship regulations, under the Online Safety Act, took effect.
Examples of harms included children being shown the murder of Charlie Kirk, graphic pornography and weapon-related content making them feel unsafe in their schools and neighbourhoods. Personalised recommendation feeds powered by “for you” algorithms were repeatedly found by Ofcom to be at the root of the continuing tide of harmful material.
The findings come a week after a coroner concluded that access to the suicide-related material on TikTok may have played a significant part in the decision of Adriana Retyte, a ۱۴-year-old pupil at Langley school in Norfolk, to take her own life in May.
They come a day after Clavicular, ۲۰, a popular social media influencer who promotes surgery and drugs as part of extreme male beauty regimes and has appeared with Andrew Tate, pleaded not guilty to rape in a US court, raising fresh concerns about the influence of “manosphere” content creators.
Ofcom’s research included tracking the exposure of UK children aged eight to ۱۷ to harmful content on user-to-user services, its impact and their use of safety tools and an analysis of children’s wellbeing after exposure to harmful content. The assessment has been shared with Lisa Nandy, the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport.
NSPCC, a child protection charity, said the findings showed that children were being exposed to harmful content at an “alarming rate”, which it said was echoed in the flow of calls for help to Childline, its online and telephone support service. Rani Govender, the head of child safety online, said “progress is not happening nearly fast enough”.
“Tech companies have had months to act, yet too many platforms are still built to keep children hooked with their algorithms continuing to push harmful content to their young users,” she said. “We urgently need stronger action from tech companies to rein in features that drive harm to children and stop putting business interests over their safety obligations.”
Dame Melanie Dawes, the watchdog’s chief executive, this week told MPs: “We do not see a safety culture from these large social media companies.” The regulator is already facing a wave of legal actions from tech companies challenging its powers including the Instagram operator Meta, as well as TikTok and X, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX group. It has warned it risks being “absolutely clobbered legally by deep-pocketed individuals and firms”.
Children most commonly reported encountering pornographic content via personalised feeds, and girls, in particular, reported feeling confused or upset after seeing such content, Ofcom found. Suicide and eating disorder content was also driven mostly through personal feeds, with girls most likely to encounter both types of harmful material. The Ofcom review also found that “young men and boys consuming motivational and self-improvement content can rapidly become exposed to more extreme content which includes the promotion of misogyny and racism”. Misspelled hashtags and coded language are often used to bypass content moderation systems that would otherwise block harmful misogynistic content.
Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, who took her life aged ۱۴ in ۲۰۱۷ after viewing suicide material on social media, told the Guardian the lack of progress was “staggering but sadly not surprising”. He blamed “timidity and lack of action” from the regulator and said: “It is time that Ofcom stood up for children and investigated the major flaws in TikTok and Instagram’s design features, not just small technicalities that have been their focus so far.”
An Ofcom spokesperson said: “This is an industry that’s been unregulated and unaccountable for more than ۲۰ years. And so while significant progress is being made – including the introduction of widespread age checks, stronger protections against grooming, and tougher safeguards against child sexual exploitation and abuse – we’re under no illusion that there is much for the industry still to do. We’ve shown that tech firms that don’t comply with their duties can expect enforcement action.”
It said the data did not cover the period from this spring when it said it stepped up pressure on Facebook, YouTube, Snap, Roblox and TikTok over child safety issues. It also said it recorded some reductions in harmful content on platforms including the games Minecraft and Call of Duty and YouTube, Pinterest and Facebook. In July it launched an investigation into TikTok over child safety concerns, including how it checks users are adults or children.
The continuing risks to children come before a planned Australia-style social media ban in the UK for under-۱۶s which is due, from next spring, to cover platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and X, but not messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal.
However campaigners have warned that must not overshadow the need to enforce protections under the Online Safety Act.
“Children will continue to face risks on services covered by the act but not the proposed ban, including gaming and messaging platforms,” said Mitali Sud, a senior policy manager at Internet Matters, a child online safety campaign. “Sixteen- and ۱۷-year-olds will still use social media. A social media ban cannot replace the need to make online services safer for children.”
A government spokesperson said platforms needed to do more to protect children from harmful content.
“That’s why we are taking bold action to strengthen protections for children from risks of harm online – banning social media from offering their services to under-۱۶s and protecting kids from harmful functionalities like livestreaming and stranger communications on a wide range of services, including gaming services,” they said.
“When it comes to children’s safety, we are not and never will be bystanders. Platforms have both a moral and legal duty to protect children and we expect them to work with us to set a new normal for future generations.”
TikTok, Meta, X and Google were contacted for comment.
