Ofcom has published its final guidance outlining measures for online services to promote a safer digital environment for women and girls, alongside a statement confirming its regulatory decisions under the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA 2023) following its February 2025 consultation. The Guidance sets out nine action areas for technology firms to tackle online gender-based harms through a safety-by-design approach, covering risk assessments, transparency and user support. It focuses on harms that disproportionately affect women and girls—such as misogynistic abuse and sexual violence, pile-ons and coordinated harassment, stalking and coercive control, and image-based sexual abuse—and includes both foundational steps linked to legal duties under the OSA 2023 and voluntary good practice measures such as abusability testing and enhanced reporting tools.

Ofcom has published final guidance for the online safety super-complaints regime under the Online Safety Act 2023, following a consultation that closed on 3 November 2025. The regime enables eligible organisations to bring systemic issues to Ofcom's attention about features of regulated online services, or conduct of those services, that may lead to material risk of significant online harm or adverse impact on the right to freedom of expression. To be eligible, organisations must demonstrate that they represent people in the UK, can act independently from regulated online services, routinely contribute significantly as experts to public discussions about online safety matters, and can be relied upon to have regard to Ofcom's guidance about making super-complaints. The guidance provides details on these and other criteria for organisations wishing to submit a super-complaint, with Ofcom's statement explaining its consideration of consultation responses and subsequent changes made to the final guidance.

Ofcom has issued its second statement, consolidating final guidance on qualifying worldwide revenue (QWR) and notification processes under the Online Safety Act 2023. This statement consolidates final guidance on both qualifying worldwide revenue (QWR) and notification processes into a single document. Following responses from two public consultations earlier in 2025, the guidance outlines how regulated service providers must calculate and report their worldwide revenue for fee purposes.

Ofcom has published its final statement on the implementation of the online safety fees and penalties regime under the Online Safety Act 2023, following consultation between October 2024 and January 2025. The statement confirms Ofcom’s decisions on the definition of Qualifying Worldwide Revenue (QWR), exemptions, charging principles, and advice to the Secretary of State, who is expected to lay QWR threshold regulations in Parliament later in 2025.

Ofcom has published a statement containing 10 final recommendations for broadcasters, online platforms, and streaming services to promote media literacy. Following a public consultation, the recommendations areorganised around four key aims: (1) giving users meaningful choice in content engagement; (2) empowering users to manage their own online experiences; (3) building trust through partnerships and outreach and (4) driving continuous improvement through ongoing evaluation, including the publication of annual statements by services. Ofcom intends to report on the adoption of these recommendations before reviewing and revising them in 2029.

Ofcom has published its final report setting out its recommendations to the Secretary of State on the designation of television selection services under the Media Act 2024. The report follows the consultation launched in July 2025 that proposed designating 14 connected TV platforms that meet a minimum threshold of 700,000 active users. In the final report, Ofcom confirmed that the recommended threshold of 700,000 active users remains appropriate and proportionate, and that no significant demographic differences warrant altering the approach. The final list of services to be designated comprises 15 platforms, with the addition of Freely. Ofcom recommended that the designations should only apply to versions available on the market in July 2025, including any subsequent versions.

Ofcom has published its final transparency reporting guidance, detailing how it will implement transparency requirements under the Online Safety Act. The guidance explains when regulated platforms must publish transparency reports and how Ofcom will exercise its powers. The requirements apply to 'categorised services' including social media, search and pornography platforms. The guidance forms part of the third phase of Ofcom's online safety regime implementation and follows a consultation that closed in October 2024. Ofcom will maintain a public register of services subject to transparency duties and will produce its own transparency reports analysing providers' submissions.

Ofcom has published the final version of its first three-year media literacy strategy, following a consultation which ran between April and June 2024. The strategy focuses on three elements, namely ‘research, evidence and evaluation’, ‘engaging platforms’ and ‘people and partnerships’. As part of the strategy, Ofcom aims to ensure that, by 2027: there will be better understanding and measurement of media literacy; platforms and broadcasters will provide better media literacy support for their users; there will be more evaluation of the effectiveness of the media literacy support; there will be longer-term funding for media literacy initiatives; and more people will have access to the skills and support they require to navigate content. Educators and other priority workforces will also be better enabled to deliver media literacy skills.

Ofcom has published its first statutory report on content harmful to children under section 63 of the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA 2023), recommending that body stigma and depression content be added to the priority content category. Both are currently classified as non-designated content, for which providers’ duties extend to risks identified in their most recent children’s risk assessments. Ofcom found sufficiently established evidence that these types of content pose a material risk of significant harm to children, particularly through cumulative exposure, to justify explicit statutory protection. If the Secretary of State adopts the recommendations, they will have the same statutory status as existing priority content. Ofcom recommends no other changes to the primary priority or priority content categories at this stage, as the available evidence supports the existing classifications or proposed legislation is likely to address concerns. Its assessment draws on research, external literature, information from service providers, stakeholder submissions and engagement with children across all four UK nations.

Ofcom has published its first report on online safety compliance since certain of the duties under the Online Safety Act 2023 first came into force in 2025. The report shows that age assurance measures were implemented by major platforms including the top 10 pornography sites by the 25 July deadline, resulting in a one-third reduction in UK visitors to pornography sites. Ofcom has launched enforcement investigations into over 80 pornography websites for non-compliance and imposed penalties including £1m on a provider of multiple adult sites and £50,000 on a nudification app. The regulator reviewed 104 risk assessment records from service providers, challenging 11 providers to revise their assessments and taking enforcement action against two providers for failing to respond to information requests. For 2026, Ofcom expects service providers to submit updated risk assessment records between 1 May and 31 July, implement more effective age checks, strengthen child protections on major platforms, and improve removal of terrorist and illegal hate content. The report identifies six priority areas requiring industry focus including making age checks more effective, preventing child sexual abuse and grooming, and creating safer experiences for women and girls.

Ofcom has published its first edition codes of practice and guidance on tackling illegal harms, such as terror, hate, fraud, child sexual abuse and assisting or encouraging suicide, under the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA 2023), four months ahead of the statutory deadline. Online service providers in scope of the OSA 2023 have until 16 March 2025 to assess the risk of illegal harms on their services, and, provided the Illegal Harms Codes complete the Parliament process, from 17 March 2025, safety measures will need to be taken by such providers to ensure they protect users from illegal content and activity.

Ofcom has published its analysis of risk assessment records from the first year of online safety duties under the Online Safety Act 2023. The regulator requested and received 104 risk assessment records under its enforcement programmes, revealing notable issues in how providers conducted illegal content risk assessments and children's risk assessments and maintained records. Ofcom has identified five areas requiring improvement: assessing all kinds of illegal and harmful content, improving analysis of features and functionalities, demonstrating confidence in controls, basing decisions on relevant evidence, and implementing appropriate risk governance. The regulator will provide supervised service providers with bespoke feedback on deficient risk assessment records and will request relevant providers to submit their illegal content and children's risk assessment records between 1 May and 31 July 2026. Ofcom has indicated it will take enforcement action where necessary improvements have not been made by providers of in-scope services.