UK children just as likely to have suffered harm on social media despite crackdown

Under the Online Safety Act, tech giants had to protect children from harmful content with a series of duties introduced in summer 2025. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

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.