Social media platforms are being urged to limit internet “pile-ons” under new guidelines to protect women and girls online.
The guidance from Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, to combat misogynist abuse, coercive control and the sharing of intimate images without consent comes into force on Tuesday and includes recommendations to prevent women being harried online.
The measures suggest tech companies enforce limits on the number of responses to posts on platforms such as X, in a move that Ofcom hopes will reduce pile-ons, where individual users are deluged with abusive replies to their posts.
Other measures raised by Ofcom include platforms using a database of images to protect women and girls from the sharing of intimate images without the subject’s consent – often referred to as “revenge porn”.
The watchdog is urging the use of “hash-matching” technology, which allows platforms to take down an image that has been the subject of a complaint. Under the system, an image or video reported by a user is cross-referenced against a database of illicit images – for instance, a “revenge porn” image or an explicit deepfake – that have been converted into “hashes”, or digital fingerprints. This allows harmful images to be detected and removed from circulation.
The recommendations have been made under the Online Safety Act (OSA), a landmark piece of legislation designed to protect children and adults from harmful material on the internet.
Although the recommendations are technically voluntary, Ofcom has put pressure on social media companies to comply, saying it will publish a report in 2027 on how individual platforms have responded to the guidelines.
The regulator added that the OSA could be toughened if the recommendations were ignored or implemented ineffectively.
“If their action falls short, we will consider making formal recommendations to government on where the Online Safety Act may need to be strengthened,” said Ofcom.
Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s chief executive, said she had encountered “shocking” stories of online abuse suffered by women and girls.
“We are sending a clear message to tech firms to step up and act in line with our practical industry guidance, to protect their female users against the very real online risks they face today,” said Dawes. “With the continued support of campaigners, advocacy groups and expert partners, we will hold companies to account and set a new standard for women’s and girls’ online safety in the UK.”
Other recommendations announced by Ofcom include: deploying prompts asking people to think twice before posting abusive content; imposing “time-outs” for people who repeatedly misuse a platform; preventing misogynistic users from earning a share of advertising revenue related to their posts; and allowing users to quickly block or mute multiple accounts at once.
The recommendations finalise a process launched in February when Ofcom issued a consultation that included the hash-matching measure. However, more than a dozen of the guidelines, including setting “rate limits” on posts, are entirely new.
Internet Matters, a nonprofit dedicated to children’s online safety, said the government should make the guidance mandatory and warned that many tech companies were likely to ignore it. Ofcom is consulting on whether to make the hash-matching recommendation mandatory.
Rachel Huggins, co-chief executive at Internet Matters, said: “We know that many companies will not adopt the guidance simply because it is not statutory, meaning the unacceptable levels of online harm which women and girls face today will remain high.”
