Ofcom has issued tech firms with new guidance to protect online users, in particular women and girls, and encourage them to go beyond the legal requirements of the Online Safety Act.
Under the new guidance, tech firms have been urged by the regulator to implement various measures to make it easier for people to avoid abusive content and harder to create it.
The four main areas of harm that Ofcom is seeking to tackle with the new guidance are misogynistic abuse, coordinated harassment, stalking and image-based sexual abuse.
In an effort to deal with each of these categories, the regulator has encouraged tech companies to impose measures to prevent and punish those posting harmful content including prompts ahead of posting, timeouts for repeated abusive posters and demonetising misogynistic abuse and sexual violence content.
It has urged firms to introduce the ability to quickly block multiple accounts at once, to introduce more sophisticated tools for tracking reports and introduce technology to detect and remove non-consensual intimate images.
“When I listen to women and girls who’ve experienced online abuse, their stories are deeply shocking. Survivors describe how a single image shared without their consent shattered their sense of self and safety,” said Ofcom boss Dame Melanie Dawes.
“That’s why today 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.
“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.”
The guidance has been welcomed by Technology Secretary Liz Kendall.
“Tech companies have the ability and the technical tools to block and delete online misogyny. If they fail to act, they’re not just bystanders, they’re complicit in creating spaces where sexism festers and a society where abuse against women and girls becomes normalised,” she said.
Read more: Tech Secretary ‘deeply concerned’ over Ofcom’s OSA implementation
