UK communications regulator Ofcom is ramping up its execution of new powers granted by the contentious Online Safety Act and will punish online platforms that censor insufficiently.
Online platforms had until yesterday to compile ‘a suitable and sufficient illegal harms risk assessment’. Ofcom will start marking their homework to see if a) the risk assessment is suitable and sufficient and b) they’re acting on it. Ofcom says it will be ‘launching targeted enforcement action where we uncover concerns.’
While it’s great that such active measures are being taken to prevent illegal content being accessible via internet platforms, it remains a mystery why a special law and the intervention of a regulator was required for existing law to be enforced. The UK police seems very efficient at harassing people who express opinions it doesn’t like online, so you would think this kind of enforcement would be just the sort of thing it would relish.
