- Seven investigations into child sexual abuse imagery on file-sharing services
- 4chan investigated regarding compliance with duties to protect users from illegal content
- Porn provider First Time Videos investigated in relation to age-check rules to protect children
Ofcom has today launched investigations into whether seven file-sharing services, 4chan and porn provider First Time Videos have failed to comply with their duties under the UK’s Online Safety Act.
Duties under the Act
The Online Safety Act has introduced new rules to ensure online services take action to protect their UK users, especially children.[1]
Sites that publish their own pornography must already have highly effective age checks in place to stop children accessing this material. Search and user-to-user services – where people can see content shared by others, including social media – should have assessed the risk of their UK users encountering illegal content and activity on their platforms, and must now be taking appropriate steps to protect them from it.[2]
As well as engaging with large platforms about their new duties, our dedicated taskforce has been attempting to engage with a number of smaller sites that may present particular risks to users. Today we have opened investigations into a number of these services.
New investigations
We have today opened formal investigations into online discussion board 4chan and seven file-sharing services – Im.ge, Krakenfiles, Nippybox, Nippydrive, Nippyshare, Nippyspace and Yolobit – having not received responses to our statutory information requests, to which services are legally required to respond.
We have received complaints about the potential for illegal content and activity on 4chan, and possible sharing of child sexual abuse material on the file-sharing services.
Specifically, we are investigating whether the providers of these services have failed to:
- put appropriate safety measures in place to protect UK users from illegal content and activity;
- complete – and keep a record of – a suitable and sufficient illegal harms risk assessment; and
- respond to a statutory information request.
We have also today launched an investigation into whether First Time Videos LLC, which provides the pornographic services FTVGirls.com and FTVMilfs.com, has highly effective age assurance in place to protect children from pornography.
What happens next
We will now gather and analyse evidence to determine whether any contraventions have occurred. If our assessment indicates compliance failures, we will issue provisional notices of contravention to providers, who can then make representations on our findings, before we make our final decisions.[3]
We will provide updates on these investigations as soon as possible.
Enforcement powers
Where we identify compliance failures, we can require platforms to take specific steps to come into compliance. We can also impose fines of up to £18m or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater.
Where appropriate, in the most serious cases, we can seek a court order for ‘business disruption measures’, such as requiring payment providers or advertisers to withdraw their services from a platform, or requiring Internet Service Providers to block access to a site in the UK.
Other ongoing enforcement activity
As the first online safety duties have come into force this year, we have launched enforcement programmes into age checks in the adult sector, providers’ compliance with duties to carry out and record illegal harms risk assessments, and into child sexual abuse imagery on file-sharing services.
In April, we opened an investigation into an online suicide forum. Last month, we launched investigations into three pornographic services – Itai Tech and Score Internet Group – which run the nudification site Undress.cc and the pornography site Scoreland.com respectively – and Kick Online Entertainment, which provides the pornography site Motherless.com.
We expect to make additional announcements on formal enforcement action over the coming months, particularly with further duties coming into force under the Act.
Notes to editors:
1. Wherever in the world a service is based, if it has ‘links to the UK’, it now has duties to protect UK users. This can mean having a significant number of UK users, if the UK is a target market, or if a service is capable of being used by people in the UK and poses a material risk of significant harm to them.
2. From the end of July, user-to-user and search services must start implementing appropriate safety measures to protect children from certain types of harmful material, including pornography and content that promotes suicide, self-harm, eating disorders or dangerous challenges.
3. UK law sets out the process Ofcom must follow when investigating a provider and deciding whether it has failed to comply with its legal obligations. Our Online Safety Enforcement Guidance can be found here.