What is the Online Safety Act?

The Online Safety Act 2023 is a landmark UK law designed to make the internet safer, especially for children. The law makes online platforms legally responsible for harmful content. After years of debate, it passed in October 2023, introducing a “duty of care” for tech companies to remove illegal or dangerous material.

In essence, this Act is the UK’s attempt to put some safety bumpers on the information superhighway. This ensures that Big Tech plays sheriff in the “Wild West” of online content.

Why Was the Online Safety Act Created?

The law was driven by mounting public concern over online harms and high-profile tragedies that exposed the internet’s darker side.

In 2017, 14-year-old Molly Russell took her own life after being exposed to self-harm content on social media. This was a case that sparked national outrage and calls for regulation [theguardian.com]. Her family’s tireless campaigning made the case for sweeping internet safety legislation “unavoidable,” according to lawmakers. UK officials came to view robust regulation as “the answer” to preventing such tragedies in future. More broadly, rising issues – from child sexual abuse images and cyber-bullying to terrorist propaganda, created pressure to act. The government’s stated ambition was to make Britain “the safest place in the world to be a child online”. This Act finally forces platforms to take responsibility for the content they host.

Key Provisions of the Online Safety Act

The Online Safety Act overhauls how internet companies must police content. Key provisions include:

• Broad scope: The law applies to any “user-to-user” online service where users can post or share content. This ranges from social media and video sites to forums, cloud storage, dating apps, and messaging services.
• Duty to remove illegal content: All in-scope platforms must proactively prevent and swiftly remove illegal material and activity. This covers a range of serious offences. Companies are expected not just to react to reported abuse, but to design their services to minimise the risks of such content appearing in the first place.
• Strong protections for children: Recognising that children are especially vulnerable, the Act gives them the highest level of protection. Platforms must prevent minors from accessing harmful or age-inappropriate content. They are required to enforce age limits and implement age verification or age-estimation tools to keep under-18s out of dangerous online zones. Services likely to be accessed by children also have to conduct child risk assessments. They also need to provide clear reporting mechanisms so kids and parents can report problems easily.
• User empowerment for adults: For adults, the law takes a lighter touch but still adds new transparency and control. Major platforms must be upfront about what types of potentially harmful-but-legal content (e.g. profanity or graphic violence) they allow, and they must enforce their own terms of service consistently. 
• New criminal offences: The Act modernises UK law by creating several new criminal offences to catch online abuse that previously fell through legal gaps. These include “cyberflashing” (sending unsolicited sexual images) and “intimate image abuse” (sharing private intimate photos without consent). It also includes “epilepsy trolling” (sending flashing images to trigger seizures). It also criminalises sending knowingly false information with intent to cause harm and particularly “threatening communications” meant to seriously distress someone. 
• Enforcement and penalties: Oversight is in the hands of Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator. It now has sweeping new powers as the internet safety watchdog. If a company fails in its duty, Ofcom can hit it with hefty fines of up to £18 million or 10% of global turnover.

Pros and Potential Benefits

Supporters hail the Online Safety Act as a much-needed upgrade to internet governance. Some key pros and benefits include:

• Stronger child protection: The Act was deliberately crafted with the “strongest protections” for minors. Platforms must actively shield children from harmful material, which could help prevent tragedies linked to exposure to self-harm, bullying, etc. 
• Accountability for Big Tech: By imposing a clear legal duty of care, the Act forces large tech companies to take responsibility for what happens on their platforms – something largely voluntary until now. This external accountability compels platforms to build safety into their design and daily operations. 
• New tools against online abuse: The Act updates the law to catch up with modern forms of online misconduct. By criminalising cyberflashing, intimate image abuse, and other online harms, it gives victims a clear path to justice.
• User empowerment and transparency: Rather than censoring all “legal but harmful” content, the Act smartly emphasises user choice and platform transparency. It requires big platforms to publish what types of content are permitted and then stick to those promises. At the same time, adults who want a cleaner experience can opt in to filters that hide content. This opt-in filtering approach lets users curate their feeds without the government dictating all content limits.

Cons and Controversies

Despite its good intentions, the Online Safety Act has fuelled significant controversy and criticism. Key cons and concerns that have been raised include:

• Free speech worries: Civil liberties groups, academics, and even some politicians have branded the law a potential “censor’s charter,” arguing that it will incentivise platforms to over-censor content. Because companies face huge fines for missing illegal material, critics fear they will play it safe and aggressively take down anything even remotely questionable. 
• Privacy and encryption concerns: Perhaps the fiercest backlash is over the Act’s impact on user privacy. The law empowers Ofcom to require even end-to-end encrypted services (like WhatsApp or Signal) to scan messages for illegal content such as child abuse images.
• Compliance burdens (especially for smaller sites): The Act’s complex duties and age verification mandates pose a heavy burden, which larger platforms can handle but which may crush smaller websites and online communities. Many niche or nonprofit sites lack the resources for expensive content filters, formal risk assessments, or robust age checks. Some have already shuttered or blocked UK users rather than risk non-compliance.
• Enforcement and scope challenges: Implementing the Online Safety Act is a massive undertaking, and some doubt whether it can be done in a fair and effective way. The law’s scope is extremely broad, covering everything from mainstream social media to private messaging and cloud storage. Policing such a vast swath of the internet will test Ofcom’s capacity and technical know-how. There’s also a risk of uneven enforcement – will smaller sites get the same scrutiny as Facebook or YouTube, and how will regulators handle the tidal wave of user-generated content that appears every day?

Conclusion

The UK’s Online Safety Act is an ambitious attempt to civilise the internet. An attempt to strike a balance between an open web and a safer one.

It introduces sweeping responsibilities for online companies to tackle harms that were once largely unchecked. It’s aiming to protect users (particularly children) from the worst the web has to offer. There’s no doubt the status quo needed fixing, and this gives the UK some of the toughest online safety rules. However, it also raises profound questions about how far we’re willing to go in policing the internet. Will it make the digital world markedly safer without undermining fundamental rights? Or will the costs to privacy, free expression, and the open internet – outweigh the benefits?

One thing’s for sure: the Online Safety Act has sparked a global conversation. Other countries around the world are watching closely, and Big Tech is being forced to innovate in response.

Love it or hate it, this Act is reshaping the rules of the online game in the UK. Only time will tell if it becomes a model for responsible internet regulation or a cautionary tale.

Concerned about compliance? We can help you prepare your business for the Online Safety Act – contact us today.