The regulator says there was no significant change in the share of children encountering harmful material in the first nine months after the Online Safety Act’s child protection duties took effect.
Ofcom has said the Online Safety Act has so far not significantly reduced the amount of harmful content children see on social media. The law’s child safety duties came into force in July 2025, requiring tech firms to protect under-18s from pornography, serious violence, suicide material, racism, misogyny and bullying. Ofcom’s review found most UK children had encountered at least one piece of harmful content online in a four-week period. It called the finding “concerning” and said it “shows that further progress is needed to protect children online”.
What Ofcom found
The review said: “According to our evidence, 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 2025.” The report does not show that the Act caused extra harm. It says only that the measured overall proportion did not change significantly.
Ofcom added: “Exposure to harmful content can have serious impacts on children’s mental and physical wellbeing. Children continue to report that encountering harmful content negatively impacts their wellbeing. There is no new evidence indicating a change to the severity of harm experienced by children as result of encountering harmful content.”
Among the findings, according to the source:
- 14% of 11 to 17-year-olds said they had been exposed to suicide or self-harm content in the previous four weeks, and 23% to eating disorder content.
- Children had come across graphic, extremely violent material on regulated services, including gore and real-life violence footage. Some said they were affected by footage of the death of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot in September 2025.
- Violent content left children feeling worried, upset, frightened or angry. Around half of teenagers exposed to weapon-related content said it made them feel less safe at school or in their neighbourhood.
- 49% of children in one group, which the source does not clearly define, said they had also been exposed to hate content in the previous four weeks.
The review included a tracking survey of UK children aged 8 to 17 on user-to-user services, an online insights panel and other research on illegal and inappropriate content and search services. The findings are being passed to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy.
Ofcom did record improvements on some individual services, including YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, Minecraft and Call of Duty, according to the Guardian. They were not enough to produce a statistically significant fall in the overall measure. The report’s data do not cover every platform change made after Ofcom’s tougher enforcement in spring 2026.
What Ofcom and campaigners say
An Ofcom spokesman said: “Our report on content harmful to children clearly shows that tech firms need to go much further and faster to protect children online. This is an industry that’s been unregulated and unaccountable for more than 20 years.”
The spokesman added: “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.”
Linda Jardine, director of children and family services at Children First, called the report a “stark picture of the overwhelming levels of danger that children face on screens”. She said young people the charity supported to contribute told it they regularly see content about pornography, suicide and self-harm, and that content involving “bullying, hate, abuse, violence, harmful substances and encouraging dangerous stunts and challenges” is “everywhere”.
She continued: “Ensuring that the Online Safety Act accurately reflects the types and severity of content that children see online is crucial, but unless the level of exposure is reduced, children will continue to experience significant harm to their physical and emotional health, wellbeing, relationships and development.”
The Guardian reported that Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly died in 2017, called the lack of improvement “staggering but sadly not surprising”, and urged scrutiny of platform design. The NSPCC’s Rani Govender said progress was too slow and that recommendation systems keep exposing children to harmful material.
What happens next
The research notes say Ofcom has recommended adding content promoting body stigma, and depression-related harmful content, to the Act’s priority categories. Ms Nandy must decide whether to take them forward. Ofcom rejected broader changes to other categories for now.
