The UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA) is a wide-ranging law meant to keep both children and adults safer online. It has now come into force, leading to both support and criticism. The goal of the law is to hold social media companies and search services more responsible for user safety.
It requires these platforms to put systems in place that lower the risk of their services being used for illegal activities and to take down illegal content when it appears. The strongest protections in the OSA are for children. Platforms must now stop children from seeing harmful or age-inappropriate content and must offer clear ways for users to report issues.
UK’s new rules are making people feel less secure
Ofcom, the independent regulator for online safety, will oversee how the Act is put into practice. It will create guidelines for companies to follow in order to meet their safety responsibilities. These responsibilities are scaled based on the level of risk and the size of the company, meaning smaller services with fewer features are not expected to meet the same standards as the biggest corporations.
The law applies to a wide variety of online services, including social media, file storage sites, video-sharing platforms, forums, dating services, and instant messaging. Even companies based outside the UK must follow the rules if they have connections to the UK, such as having many UK users or targeting the UK market.
The OSA is being introduced in stages. Rules about illegal content are already in effect, meaning companies must assess the risk of illegal content appearing on their platforms. Rules about content harmful to children are also being rolled out, with Ofcom providing guidance on age verification to stop children from accessing online pornography and checking how easily children can use certain services.
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The Act also defines specific types of content that are harmful to children. This includes “Primary Priority Content,” such as pornography and content that promotes self-harm, eating disorders, or suicide. “Priority Content” includes bullying, abusive or hateful material, content showing or encouraging violence, dangerous stunts and challenges, and content that promotes the use of harmful substances.
OSA may make many criminals
The OSA also creates new criminal offenses, such as encouraging or helping someone seriously harm themselves, cyberflashing (sending unwanted explicit images), spreading false information meant to cause real harm, making threats, sharing intimate images without consent, and deliberately targeting people with epilepsy using flashing images.
The law requires illegal suicide and self-harm content to be taken down quickly and makes it a crime to intentionally encourage or assist serious self-harm. The Act also requires companies to think about how their recommendation algorithms might increase exposure to illegal content or content harmful to children as part of their risk assessments.
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While the OSA aims to protect vulnerable users, it has caused concern, especially in the video game industry. Its broad scope means any game with user-to-user communication must now follow new moderation and reporting rules.
A major worry is that smaller, independent developers may struggle to meet the Act’s requirements due to limited resources. Ofcom has recognized these concerns and is taking a risk-based approach, but some rules, like setting up age verification systems and content moderation tools, could make it much harder for small developers to operate. The complexity of the law, along with extra auditing and reporting demands, adds to the cost of compliance.
Live-service games, which depend heavily on online communication, will likely be most affected by the law. Some believe the OSA will push companies to invest more in trust and safety measures, while others argue it gives an advantage to big, established companies over new competitors, making it harder for smaller developers to enter the market.
Another big question is how well the OSA can be enforced. While the law gives Ofcom tools to deal with harmful content, including fines and even blocking websites, some doubt whether it can effectively monitor everything online. It also remains to be seen whether users will find ways to bypass the new safety features.
