Nearly a year after the UK's Online Safety Act imposed binding child safety duties on social media platforms, TikTok and YouTube have refused to make significant new commitments to fix their recommendation feeds — even as Ofcom's own research confirmed that 73% of 11- to 17-year-olds in Britain encountered harmful content online in a single four-week survey period. The findings, published May 21, marked the most pointed rebuke yet of the two platforms' approach to protecting children, and placed their refusal in direct contrast to new commitments from Snap, Meta, and Roblox.
Ofcom's chief executive, Dame Melanie Dawes, said the potential of these industry changes to make children's lives safer online depended entirely on platforms following through. The regulator made clear that promises on paper would face independent verification.
The report, part of Ofcom's Project Mercury investigation into child safety compliance, examined how six of Britain's most-used platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Roblox, Snap, TikTok and YouTube — responded to four demands issued in March 2026: effective age enforcement, failsafe grooming protections, safer algorithmic feeds, and an end to product testing on children before safety assessments are complete.
Social Media Harmful Content Reaches 73% of UK Teens Despite Online Safety Act
The headline figure from Ofcom's concurrent Children's Online Experiences Report is unambiguous: despite child safety duties coming into force in July 2025, the proportion of 11- to 17-year-olds encountering harmful content online has not meaningfully changed. More than a third of those children encountered that material while scrolling through their main recommendation feeds — the very systems Ofcom demanded platforms redesign.
The breakdown is more damaging for specific platforms. Among secondary school-aged children who reported seeing harmful content, 53% encountered it on TikTok. YouTube accounted for 36%, Instagram for 34%, and Facebook for 31%. That TikTok and YouTube together account for the largest share of harmful feed exposure — and that both declined to commit to significant feed changes — is the central tension Ofcom's report leaves unresolved.
Ofcom also confirmed that 84% of children aged 8 to 12 are still using platforms — YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat — that officially set their minimum age at 13. The regulator said the current Online Safety Act does not clearly require platforms to keep underage children off their services through mandatory age checks, and has written to the UK government requesting stronger legal authority in this area. YouTube is used by 67% of children; TikTok by 60%; 95% use at least one social media or video-sharing service.
"For far too long, tech giants have dragged their heels by refusing to address the harmful and addictive content flooding children's feeds and putting them at risk," said Chris Sherwood, chief executive of the NSPCC, the UK's leading child protection charity. "It is deeply concerning that tech companies are still failing to recognise and address the harmful nature of their algorithms. These systems are at the heart of children's online experiences. We must see these services go further and be held accountable for transformational change which puts children's safety and wellbeing at the centre of platform design."
How Platforms Responded to Ofcom's Online Grooming Protection Demands
The split between acting and non-acting platforms is stark. Snap committed to all of Ofcom's grooming protection measures: by default, adult strangers will be blocked from contacting children; young users will no longer be nudged toward expanding their social networks to people they do not know; and Snap plans to roll out stronger age verification checks to all UK users over the summer to ensure that under-18s benefit from the new protections. Ofcom noted that children in the top quartile of Snapchat users aged 8 to 14 spend an average of 4 hours and 20 minutes per day on the service, giving the urgency of Snap's reforms added weight.
Meta committed to implementing Ofcom's connection list protection on Instagram — hiding teenagers' follower and connection lists from view by default — and announced plans to deploy artificial intelligence tools to detect sexualised conversations between adults and teenagers in Instagram direct messages. Meta did not, however, agree to Ofcom's "network expansion prompts" measure, which would prevent Instagram from suggesting connections between children and people they do not know.
Roblox committed to giving parents the ability to switch off direct messaging entirely for users under 16. The platform also said it would launch two age-based account tiers in June 2026 — one for users aged 5 to 8, and one for users aged 9 to 15 — with communications features disabled by default for the youngest group.
All six platforms, including TikTok and YouTube, confirmed they would notify Ofcom when they complete risk assessments before significant service changes — an obligation that goes beyond what the Online Safety Act strictly requires. The exception: TikTok said it would only notify Ofcom where legally required to do so.
What TikTok and YouTube Are Not Doing
Neither TikTok nor YouTube committed to making significant changes to their recommendation feeds. Both maintained that their existing systems are already sufficient to protect children. Ofcom's data directly contradicts this position: its research shows the feeds of these two platforms are the primary routes through which harmful content reaches British children.
A YouTube spokesperson said the platform provides "industry-leading, age-appropriate, high quality experiences for young viewers, working with child safety experts to deliver protections that support millions of families across the UK." TikTok called Ofcom's findings "very disappointing" and said the regulator had "failed to acknowledge both our longstanding and newer safety features."
Ofcom responded by issuing legally binding information requests to Meta, TikTok, and YouTube demanding detailed information about how their recommendation systems, moderation tools, and child safety mechanisms actually work. The regulator is also examining whether to use new powers assigned to it under the Online Safety Act — requiring platforms to undergo independent "skilled persons' reports" or issuing remote viewing notices that would allow Ofcom to observe platform systems and processes in real time.
How Does the Online Safety Act Protect Children?
The Online Safety Act, which imposed child safety duties on platforms in July 2025, requires services likely to be accessed by children to complete risk assessments, implement safer algorithmic feeds, enforce minimum-age policies, and quickly remove harmful content once aware of it. Ofcom enforces the Act and can impose fines of up to 10% of a platform's qualifying worldwide revenue — or £18 million, whichever is higher — for non-compliance. The Act also establishes criminal offences for the most serious failures.
The regulator has already acted against non-compliant services: in early 2026, Ofcom fined adult website operators including 8579 LLC £1.35 million — the largest fine yet issued under the Act — and Kick Online Entertainment SA £800,000, both for failing to implement age checks to prevent children from accessing pornographic content. For major social media platforms, fines could reach into the hundreds of millions of pounds given the scale of global revenue.
Ofcom confirmed that between May and July 2026, it may request that TikTok, YouTube, and Meta submit their children's risk assessments for review. Platforms found to have made insufficient progress from their year-one assessments face formal enforcement action.
Age Verification Social Media UK: What Parents Can Do Now
The regulator's data makes clear that no platform currently keeps underage users off its service reliably. Self-declaration — where a child types in a date of birth — has been dismissed by both Ofcom and the Information Commissioner's Office as insufficient. Ofcom is pressing platforms to use technologies including facial age estimation, digital identity verification, and photo-matching to establish user ages more robustly.
For parents in the UK now, the practical implications are these: Snap's new protections blocking adult-stranger contact by default will roll out over summer 2026; parents can also activate Roblox's new parental chat controls when the age-tiered accounts launch in June. Meta's AI detection tools in Instagram DMs are forthcoming. On TikTok and YouTube, the existing protections are what those companies have told Ofcom are sufficient — and Ofcom has said in writing that they are not.
Digital Rights Concerns Over Age Verification Infrastructure
Not all observers view mandatory age verification as a straightforward gain for child safety. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which tracks digital rights globally, has called age verification mandates a "censorship and surveillance nightmare," arguing that every age verification method requires users to hand over sensitive personal information linking their offline identity to their online activity — data held by companies with inadequate security and financial incentives to retain it. The EFF's position is that these systems build surveillance infrastructure affecting all users, not just minors, and that the scope of such systems tends to expand once the infrastructure exists.
Ofcom and the UK's Information Commissioner's Office published a joint statement in March 2026 setting out their expectation that age assurance be implemented in ways compatible with data protection law, and that data collected for age verification not be retained or repurposed. Whether those safeguards prove durable as enforcement tools expand is a live question in UK digital policy.
What Comes Next Under the Online Safety Act
Ofcom has indicated it will publish updated safety codes later in 2026, including guidance on AI-powered moderation systems, and has signalled its intention to strengthen protections specifically targeting non-consensual intimate images and sexual deepfakes.
The UK government's "Growing Up in the Online World" consultation, which closes May 26, 2026, is considering a range of additional measures: a possible ban on social media access for children under 16, restrictions on algorithmically addictive design features, and raising the digital age of consent from 13. Britain is watching Australia's social media ban for under-16s — which took effect in December 2025 — as a potential model.
Platforms that fail to demonstrate progress against Ofcom's four demands risk formal enforcement under the Online Safety Act. For TikTok and YouTube, the regulator has signalled it will not wait indefinitely for voluntary improvement.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is TikTok safe for children in the UK in 2026?
According to Ofcom's May 2026 research, TikTok is the platform most frequently cited for harmful content exposure among UK children: 53% of secondary school-aged children who encountered harmful content online said they encountered it on TikTok. The platform declined to commit to significant changes to its recommendation feed in response to Ofcom's demands, and the regulator has issued legally binding information requests to the company to examine how its systems actually function.
What actions have other social media platforms taken in response to Ofcom's demands?
Snap, Meta, and Roblox all committed to new protections following Ofcom's March 2026 demands. Snap will block adult strangers from contacting children by default and expand age verification. Meta will use AI to detect sexualised conversations in Instagram DMs and hide teen connection lists. Roblox will give parents the ability to disable direct messaging for under-16s and will launch age-tiered accounts in June 2026.
What does the Online Safety Act require social media platforms to do?
The Act, enforced by Ofcom since July 2025, requires platforms likely to be used by children to conduct risk assessments, implement safer algorithmic feeds, enforce minimum-age policies, and remove harmful content quickly. Ofcom can fine non-compliant companies up to 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue. The regulator has confirmed that existing legislation does not explicitly require platforms to keep underage users off their services, and has urged the government to strengthen this provision.
How can parents protect their children from harmful social media content?
Ofcom's evidence shows no current platform reliably enforces its own minimum age of 13. Parents can limit children's use of TikTok and YouTube specifically, given that both platforms declined to commit to feed changes. Snap's new protections — blocking adult-stranger contact by default — will roll out in summer 2026. Roblox's parental chat controls launch in June 2026. The ICO has said self-declaration of age is not an acceptable verification method, and platforms are being pressed to implement more robust age-checking technologies.
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