What difference will the Online Safety Act make to children at your school?

The Online Safety Act 2023 has now become law in the UK, introducing new requirements for online platforms to keep children safe.  

Read on to learn some of the main changes the Act aims to bring about for children...

Platforms should prevent children from seeing content that’s harmful and inappropriate – this includes pornography, and content around self-harm, eating disorders and suicide. 

This will partly be enforced through platforms implementing stronger age verification processes. We don’t know exactly what this might look like in different spaces. Some websites and platforms – those that host adult content – will have to introduce age verification at the point of accessing the site or app. For others, this might look more like age checks when a user tries to view or access adult/sensitive content. 

Give children more choice and control over their online experiences. This should mean allowing them to decide and indicate content they don’t like, to block and mute certain content or accounts, and to choose whether or not to join a group chat. 

Make reporting easier. Platforms should make it ‘straightforward’ for children to report content or users, and platforms should respond properly to their reports. 

Things to consider... 

Regulating big global tech companies is a slow and difficult process. And, as the Act is rolled out, tech companies have been given time to adjust to the changes – so we shouldn’t expect to see change overnight.

We also don’t know exactly what many of these changes might look like or whether they will be effective at preventing harm. Age verification could mean different things on different platforms, yet many other changes will depend on the effectiveness of these age checks.

It’s important to look out for these changes so that we can learn about how they impact children and young people’s experiences.   

Children from our Respected and Safe schools have helped us to understand that the harmful content they are exposed to online is complex. 

We know that there are many kinds of content children see that is harmful but might be difficult for moderation (and new age check rules) to catch 

We should think of these changes as a good start, but as always, the best thing we can do to support children and young people is engage with their online life, talk about their experiences and make sure they know they will be supported if things go wrong. 

The most important thing we can all do is listen to children about how they experience any changes, and what they think about them. 

You can share any concerns about experiences of these changes with us by email (info@cybersafescotland.org) or through the chat function on this website.