Ofcom has said it will make “enforcement announcements in the coming months” after Press Gazette flagged behaviour by Facebook which appears to breach the Online Safety Act.
Under the new law platforms like Facebook have a duty to take down illegal content and to not unfairly stifle freedom of speech.
Press Gazette has flagged up the issue of Facebook adverts which impersonate high-profile journalists in order to scam users of the platform into joining Whatsapp investment advice groups. Despite repeated requests to take action, the scam financial scheme adverts continue to proliferate on Facebook.
A spokesperson for Ofcom said: “Social media companies in scope of the UK’s Online Safety Act had until 16 March to assess the risk of people in the UK encountering illegal user-generated content or activity on their sites and apps – including fraud. On 17 March, duties came into force that mean tech firms must now start putting appropriate measures in place to mitigate these risks, and to remove illegal user-generated material quickly when they become aware of it.
“User-generated content includes images, videos, messages or comments, as well as other forms of data, that are generated, uploaded or shared by the user and can be encountered by other users. That could include posts that users pay to promote or boost.
“We’re currently assessing platforms’ compliance with these new duties, and will take action if platforms fail to take appropriate steps to comply with them. We have enforcement work underway in a number of areas, and have already launched our first investigation into an individual platform. We expect to make further enforcement announcements in the coming months.
“Our role is not to assess individual pieces of content. Instead, Ofcom’s job is to make sure platforms are taking effective action to address harmful content through implementing appropriate systems and processes.
“Complaints, or requests for content to be removed, should be made to the site or app concerned.
“Individuals can also share their concerns with Ofcom via our online complaints portal. While we don’t have a role in resolving individual complaints about specific content, we monitor this information to help us understand and identify broader online safety trends and concerns, and to determine whether further action may be necessary.
“In due course, some of the most widely-used sites and apps, known as ‘categorised’ services, will be subject to additional duties under the Act, including tackling paid-for fraudulent advertising that is not user-generated content; and protecting news publisher and journalistic content, and content of democratic importance.
“In February, Government set thresholds in secondary legislation to determine which platforms will be subject to these additional duties. We are now developing our register of categorised services, which we plan to publish this summer.
“We will then consult on codes of practice that will set out measures categorised services can take to comply with these additional duties. For example, that might include the checks they carry out on potential advertisers before placing adverts, and the action they take if they receive complaints about fraudulent advertisements once these codes are finalised, these duties.” will come into force.”
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