Body stigma and depression content earmarked for stricter UK regulation

Ofcom has recommended a re-categorisation of body stigma and depression content under the UK’s Online Safety Act, with a view to ensuring greater protections for children against that kind of content.

Under the Online Safety Act, service providers’ obligations to address illegal content and protect children from harmful content vary depending on how severe the harm associated with the regulated content is. A categorisation system operates.

Currently, body stigma content and depression content is categorised as ‘non-designated content that is harmful to children’ (NDC). This means in-scope service providers must assess whether the content is likely to be accessed by children on their platforms, run a risk assessment where that is the case, and take proportionate steps to address risks they identify.

Under Ofcom’s recommendation, which would need to be acted on by the UK government to have effect, body stigma content and depression content would be re-categorised as to ‘priority content that is harmful to children’ (PC).

To meet their obligations around PC, providers of in-scope services are required to run the same assessments of the likelihood of children accessing the content and the risks posed as they are in respect of NDC, but take more targeted action such as how they moderate, review and age-filter PC. Examples of other forms of content already regulated as PC under section 62 of the Online Safety Act include violent content, content that is abusive or incites hatred, bullying content, harmful substances content, and dangerous stunts and challenges content.

Stricter obligations still apply to ‘primary priority content that is harmful to children’ (PPC).

Gemma Erskine of Pinsent Masons, an expert in online safety regulation at Pinsent Masons, said: “The difficulty with categories like body stigma and depression content is that they aren’t easy to define. A post about eating disorder recovery and a post promoting disordered eating can look incredibly similar, even with opposite intentions. Tech companies will need to make those distinctions consistently, at scale, and under the threat of significant regulatory sanction, which is no small ask.”

Ofcom’s recommendation was set out in its maiden annual statutory report on content harmful to children (85-page / 1.68MB PDF) and comes after the possible re-categorisation of body stigma and depression content was floated by the regulator earlier this year.

“Body stigma and depression content are currently kinds of NDC and therefore the duties on user-to-user and search services extend only to risks of harm from kinds of content identified in the service provider’s most recent children’s risk assessment,” Ofcom said in its new report. “The evidence continues to show that children encounter body stigma content and depression content and that these kinds of content present a material risk of significant harm to an appreciable number of children in the UK, particularly in relation to the cumulative impact of exposure to these kinds of content.”

“In Ofcom’s opinion, this evidence of harm to children is now sufficiently established to justify expressly designating them both as PC under section 62, giving them the same statutory footing as the kinds of content already listed under section 62 of the Act,” it said.