More than 3,000 Communicating Indecently with a Child offences have been recorded by Police Scotland during the past five years
NSPCC urges Ofcom to significantly strengthen its approach to child sexual abuse and for the UK Government to ensure the regulator can tackle grooming in private messaging
Over 3,000 online grooming crimes across Scotland have been recorded by Police Scotland during the past five years, new data compiled by the NSPCC has revealed.
The figures provided by Police Scotland show 3,234 Communicating Indecently with a Child offences were recorded since 2019, with 672 offences recorded last year (2023/24) – an increase of 13% from the previous year.
The NSPCC has issued these findings a year on from the Online Safety Act being passed.
The charity is urging Ofcom to significantly strengthen the rules social media platforms must follow to tackle child sexual abuse on their products.
They say the regulator currently puts too much focus on acting after harm has taken place rather than being proactive to ensure the design features of social media apps are not contributing to abuse.
The NSPCC is also calling on the Government to strengthen legislation to ensure child sexual abuse is disrupted in private messages such as on Snapchat and WhatsApp.
The charity’s Voice of Online Youth young people’s group were not surprised at the prevalence of Snapchat in offences.
Liidia, 13 from Glasgow, said: “Snapchat has disappearing messages, and that makes it easier for people to hide things they shouldn’t be doing.
“Another problem is that Snapchat has this feature where you can show your location to everyone. If you’re not careful, you might end up showing where you are to people you don’t know, which is super risky.
“And honestly, not all the rules in Snapchat are strict, so some people take advantage of that to do bad things. Apps should have better ways for us to report bad things, and they should always get updated to protect us better with the latest security tech.”
Sir Peter Wanless, NSPCC Chief Executive, said:“One year since the Online Safety Act became law and we are still waiting for tech companies to make their platforms safe for children.
“We need ambitious regulation by Ofcom who must significantly strengthen their current approach to make companies address how their products are being exploited by offenders.
“It is clear that much of this abuse is taking place in private messaging which is why we also need the UK Government to strengthen the Online Safety Act to give Ofcom more legal certainty to tackle child sexual abuse on the likes of Snapchat and WhatsApp.”
National Police Chief’s Council Lead for Child Protection and Abuse Investigations (CPAI) Becky Riggs said: “The numbers in this NSPCC data are shocking and policing joins partners in urging tech companies and Ofcom to fulfil their legal and moral obligations to keep children safe from harm within the online communities they have created.
“A year on from the Online Safety Act being passed, it is imperative that the responsibility of safeguarding children online is placed with the companies who create spaces for them, and the regulator strengthens rules that social media platforms must follow.
“Policing will not stop in its fight against those who commit these horrific crimes. We cannot do this alone, so while we continue to pursue and prosecute those who abuse and exploit children, we repeat our call for more to be done by companies in this space.”
In this article, Ofcom explain some of the main measures and the difference we expect them to make. Whether you are a parent, carer or someone working with children, this can help you understand what is happening to help children in the UK live safer lives online.
Protecting children is a priority
Protecting children so they can enjoy the benefits of being online, without experiencing the potentially serious harms that exist in the online world, is a priority for Ofcom.
Under the Act social media apps, search and other online services must prevent children from encountering the most harmful content relating to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and pornography. They must also minimise children’s exposure to other serious harms, including violent, hateful or abusive material, bullying content, and content promoting dangerous challenges.
What will companies have to do to protect children online?
Firstly, online services must establish whether children are likely to access their site – or part of it. And secondly, if children are likely to access it, the company must carry out a further assessment to identify the risks their service poses to children, including the risk that come from the design of their services, their functionalities and algorithms. They then need to introduce various safety measures to mitigate these risks.
Our consultation proposes more than 40 safety measures that services would need to take – all aimed at making sure children enjoy safer screen time when they are online. These include:
Robust age checks – our draft Codes expect services to know which of their users are children in order to keep protect them from harmful content. In practice, this means that all services which don’t ban harmful content should introduce highly effective age-checks to prevent children from accessing the entire site or app, or age-restricting parts of it for adults-only access.
Safer algorithms – under our proposals, any service that has systems that recommend personalised content to users and is at a high risk of harmful content must design their algorithms to filter out the most harmful content from children’s feeds, and downrank other harmful content. Children must also be able to provide negative feedback so the algorithm can learn what content they don’t want to see.
Effective moderation – all services, like social media apps and search services, must have content moderation systems and processes to take quick action on harmful content and large search services should use a ‘safe search’ setting for children, which can’t be turned off and must filter out the most harmful content. Other broader measures require clear policies from services on what kind of content is allowed, how content is prioritised for review, and for content moderation teams to be well-resourced and trained.
What difference will these measures make?
We believe these measures will improve children’s online experiences in a number of ways. For example:
Children will not normally be able to access pornography.
Children will be protected from seeing, and being recommended, potentially harmful content.
Children will not be added to group chats without their consent.
It will be easier for children to complain when they see harmful content, and they can be more confident that their complaints will be acted on.
Our consultation follows proposals we’ve already published for how children should be protected from illegal content and activity such as grooming, child sexual exploitation and abuse, as well as how children should be prevented from accessing pornographic content.
Next steps
Our consultation is open until 17 July and we welcome any feedback on the proposals. We expect to finalise our proposals and publish our final statement and documents in spring next year.
Now that we’ve rung in the New Year, many people are thinking about ways to save money in 2024. Household budgets continue to feel the pinch amid rising living costs – so it’s important to find out if you can cut costs on your phone, broadband and pay-TV bills.
If you’re looking to get on top of your finances for the year ahead, there are steps you can take to avoid overpaying for these services.
Here’s five things you can check to make sure you’re not missing out on savings:
1. Are you in or out of contract?
Millions of people in the UK are out of contract for their phone, broadband or pay-TV services and could be missing out on better deals. Check with your provider to make sure you’re not one of them.
If you’re out of contract, you’re probably paying too much and it’s time to see if there are better deals available. Check out comparison sites accredited by Ofcom to see what’s on offer. Talk to your current provider to see if they will match, or even beat, the best deal available. If not, consider switching provider. To find out more, see our guide to switching.
2. Are you eligible for a social tariff?
If you receive Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Employment and Support Allowance, or other benefits, you might be eligible for a cheaper broadband deal. Packages start from just £10 a month and could see you make savings of around £200 a year.
If your existing provider offers a social tariff and you are eligible, you can switch to it at any time, free of charge.
To find out more about the range of social tariffs on offer and to see if you might qualify, check our guide.
3. Could you save using a SIM-only tariff?
If you’re looking to save money on your mobile, check out offers available on SIM-only tariffs. If you already have a handset and just want a monthly allowance of calls, texts, and data, this could be the best option for you. They’re often cheaper than a contract with an inclusive handset, and many tariffs cost less than £10 a month.
If you don’t already have a handset, it’s usually still cheaper to buy a handset separately and use it with a SIM-only plan. However, a one-off payment for a handset can still cost a significant amount and might not be affordable for everyone.
4. Could you save on broadband with a bundle?
If you need a landline service too, you can save money by getting your broadband and phone as part of a bundle deal. Our recent research revealed you could save as much as 34% by bundling these services with the same provider. Check with your provider to see what packages they offer and whether these suit your needs.
If you don’t need a landline and you’re looking for a standalone full-fibre broadband package, it’s worth checking out smaller providers as well, with packages available from between £25 and £50 per month.
5. Do you use all your pay-TV subscriptions?
It’s easy to sign up to a range of pay-TV and streaming services with so much great content on offer – and many homes have multiple subscriptions on the go.
But if you’re trying to save money, it’s worth thinking about how much you use these services and whether you’d be missing out if you cancelled them.
Many streaming services can be cancelled – or paused – straight away without needing to pay any sort of penalty, so it could be useful even as a temporary measure.
More information
We’ve got more tips on cutting costs on your phone, broadband and pay-TV bills.
Government recommends reforms to boost public trust in the BBC following a review at the mid-point of its 11 year Charter
Review recommends greater independent scrutiny of complaints handling, improving transparency for commercial media organisations, and extending Ofcom oversight over more BBC online services
BBC urged to better reflect diverse views and opinions in decision-making and improve engagement with underserved audience groups, among other key recommendations
The Westminster government has recommended major reforms to help boost audience confidence in the BBC’s impartiality and complaints system, following the first Mid-Term Review published by the government today.
Launched at the halfway point of the BBC’s 11 year Royal Charter, the Mid-Term Review evaluates the effectiveness of the governance and regulatory arrangements introduced by the Charter in 2017, with recommendations to ensure the best outcome for audiences.
Audiences will be given greater certainty that their complaints about BBC TV, radio and on demand content – including concerns about bias – are dealt with fairly, through greater scrutiny of its complaints process, which is to be made more independent from programme makers. A new legally binding responsibility on the BBC Board will require it to actively oversee the BBC’s complaints process to assure audiences that their concerns are being fairly considered.
In recognition that audiences are increasingly getting their news and watching content online, Ofcom oversight will be extended to parts of the BBC’s online public services, including the BBC News website, to enable Ofcom to hold the BBC to account in a more robust way.
And Ofcom will be given a new legally binding responsibility to review more of the BBC’s complaints decisions, meaning audiences can have greater confidence that their complaints have been handled fairly.
The Mid-Term Review stresses the need for the BBC to clearly demonstrate how it will meet its obligations on distinctiveness over the remainder of this Charter period, and for the BBC to meaningfully engage with its competitors, such as radio stations and local newspapers, when it is considering a change to its services.
The government consulted the BBC and Ofcom closely on the recommendations and expects them to be implemented in a timely manner. The government has also identified some key issues as a result of the Mid-Term Review that need to be further considered at the next Charter Review before 2027.
In particular, we will continue to place a strong emphasis on impartiality and complaints, including reviewing the effectiveness of the BBC’s new social media guidelines and whether the BBC First model – formally introduced by the Charter in 2017 – process remains the right model for complaints, as well as how distinctive BBC output and services are from those of commercial providers.
The Government has highlighted these priorities for the next Charter in correspondence with the BBC.
Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said: “The Government wants to see a strong, independent BBC that can thrive in the years to come as a major contributor to the nation’s successful creative industries.
“In a rapidly changing media landscape the BBC needs to adapt or risk losing the trust of the audiences it relies on. Following constructive conservations with the BBC and Ofcom, we have recommended reforms that I believe will improve accountability while boosting public confidence in the BBC’s ability to be impartial and respond to concerns raised by licence fee payers.
“These changes will better set up the BBC to ask difficult questions of itself, and make sure Ofcom can continue to hold the broadcaster to account. We all rely on the BBC being the best it can be and this review will help ensure that is what the British public gets.”
Complaints and impartiality
The Mid-Term Review has concluded that the BBC’s complaints process introduced at the last Charter Review in 2017, known as BBC First – where audience complaints are normally addressed by the BBC before they can be escalated to Ofcom – allows licence fee payers to hold the BBC directly accountable.
However, impartiality continues to be an ongoing issue for audiences, with concerns about the broadcaster’s objectivity making up the majority of complaints about the BBC’s editorial content. The review highlights a lack of public confidence in the way the BBC currently handles complaints.
Following challenging and constructive conversations with the government, the BBC will introduce reforms to enhance the independent scrutiny of its complaints handling and further improve the experience of viewers who make a complaint.
The BBC Board previously had a responsibility to oversee only the establishment of a complaints handling process. We are now giving the entire Board the responsibility to oversee how that process is working in practice. Furthermore, the non-executive board directors and external advisors on the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee will be given greater powers to scrutinise and challenge how BBC senior management responds to complaints.
The job role which has responsibility for complaints handling now reports directly to the Director General rather than the Director responsible for editorial policy, separating pre-broadcast editorial policy and post-broadcast complaints resolution.
Currently Ofcom regulates the BBC’s TV, radio and on demand output, but not other elements of its online content. The government has committed to extending Ofcom regulation to other elements of the BBC’s online public service material in order to give audiences confidence that the BBC is being held to greater account across its digital services. The government expects this to apply to BBC branded content on third party websites, applications and other online interfaces over which the BBC has editorial control – including the BBC News website and the BBC’s YouTube channel.
The review recommends the BBC materially improves the experience of audiences when lodging a complaint by giving clearer explanations of the process and the roles of the BBC and Ofcom, to ensure licence fee payers are not put off from sharing their views. The review also recommends Ofcom improves the transparency of its decision making when considering whether to open a formal investigation into content that the BBC has found has breached its own editorial standards. This will help audiences to better understand whether Ofcom is taking further regulatory action and why.
At Charter Review, the government is committing to examining whether BBC First remains the right complaints model to enable the BBC to deliver against its responsibility to serve all audiences.
To help the BBC go further to tackle perceptions of bias, the review also recommends that the BBC publishes more information about the work it is doing to strengthen the impartiality of its editorial content, including to illustrate the impact it’s having.
The BBC’s impact on the wider market
Looking at the BBC’s impact on the UK media landscape, the review sets out that the BBC must clearly demonstrate how it effectively balances delivering for licence fee payers and supporting the UK’s wider creative industries when making decisions about how its services and output are distinctive. This is increasingly important given broader structural trends in some of the markets in which the BBC operates, such as online local news, and will be an important question for the Charter Review.
Meaningful engagement with competitors should be strengthened and the BBC must be more transparent when it seeks to make changes to its services. This higher standard of engagement and transparency should support other businesses operating in the same markets as the BBC, including commercial radio stations and local news publishers. The government has recommended that Ofcom publish an annual high-level view on the BBC’s position in the local news sector, as it does for other sectors, to provide further clarity.
The government has also recommended that the BBC develop a public strategy outlining how it will partner with others, and provide competitors with greater clarity on how it will make decisions on partnerships.
While the government supports the BBC’s ambitious plans to grow its commercial revenue, and has found that the governance and regulation of its commercial activities works effectively, the impact of any changes, such as the introduction of a BBC Commercial Board in 2022, needs to be closely monitored.
Diversity
As a national broadcaster, the BBC has a duty in its Charter to accurately reflect, represent and serve diverse communities across the UK, both on and off the screen.
While the BBC has said it is committed to improving representation, the review recommends it considers how diversity of thought and opinion could be better reflected in its decision-making. Some audience groups, for example, disabled viewers and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, feel underrepresented by the BBC. We recommend that the BBC works to ensure engagement with these groups is sufficient to best understand their specific needs and concerns.
With most major phone, broadband and pay TV companies now including mid-contract price rises linked to uncertain future inflation, we are concerned that customers’ contracts do not provide sufficient certainty about the prices they will pay.
So Ofcom are proposing to introduce tougher protections for customers by banning this practice.
Competition helps keep prices down. Although some broadband prices have increased this year, over the last five years, average prices for broadband and mobile services in the UK have fallen in real terms. At the same time, companies have been investing in upgrading their networks, while average speeds and data use have increased.[1]
However, for competition to work, consumers must be able to shop around with confidence.
In recent years, pricing practices where providers impose an annual rise linked to unpredictable future inflation, plus an additional percentage of typically 3.9%, have become significantly more widespread, undermining customers’ understanding of what they will pay.
What we have found
Our analysis of providers’ data shows that as of April 2023 four in ten (11 million) broadband customers and over half of mobile customers (36 million) were on contracts subject to inflation-linked price rises. We estimate that these numbers may grow further, to around six in ten of both broadband and mobile customers, as Three and Virgin Media apply inflation-linked in-contract price rise terms to more of their customers’ contracts during 2023/24.
However, awareness and understanding of these terms is very low. More than half (55%) of broadband customers and pay monthly mobile customers (58%) do not know what inflation rates such as CPI and RPI measure. And of those who are with providers that use inflation-linked price rises, very few broadband (16%) and mobile customers (12%) were both aware of the price rise and able to identify that it was inflation-linked with an additional percentage.[2]
We also found that even when people do consider future inflation-linked price rises when choosing a contract, they often do not understand them fully and find it difficult to estimate what the impact could be on their payments.
Between January and October 2023, Ofcom received over 800 complaints related to price rises – almost double the volume of complaints received during the same period in 2021 – many of which highlighted uncertainty created by inflation-linked price rises.
Our conclusions
We have provisionally concluded that inflation-linked mid-contract price rise terms can cause substantial amounts of consumer harm by complicating the process of shopping for a deal, limiting consumer engagement, and making competition less effective as a result.
These terms also require customers to unfairly assume the risk and burden of financial uncertainty from inflation, with tangible impacts on their ability to manage costs at a time when household budgets are already stretched to the limit.
Toughening our rules
To tackle this problem, we propose to introduce a new rule requiring that any price written into a customer’s contract would need to be set out in pounds and pence, prominently and transparently, at the point of sale. That includes being clear about when any changes to prices will occur.
This would prevent providers from including inflation-linked, or percentage-based, price rise terms in all new contracts.
Example of how the £/p requirement would apply
Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s Chief Executive, said: “At a time when household finances are under serious strain, customers need prices to be crystal clear. But most people are left confused by the sheer complexity and unpredictability of inflation-linked price rise terms written into their contract, which undermines customers’ ability to shop around.
“Our tougher protections would ban this practice once and for all, giving customers the clarity and certainty they need to secure the best deal for their needs and budget.”
Next steps
We are consulting on this proposed new requirement until 13 February 2024, and plan to publish our final decision in spring 2024.
Subject to responses, we intend for the new rule to come into effect four months after the publication of our final decision. This period reflects our concern about the scale of consumer harm balanced against the need to give providers sufficient time to make the necessary changes to their processes and business plans.
Enforcement action
Separately, Ofcom have been investigating whether phone and broadband companies complied with our previous rules between March 2021 and June 2022. We have found that a small number of providers may not have given some customers clear information about price rises at the right time, creating a potential compliance concern.
We have discussed these concerns with the relevant providers and secured refunds for some affected customers. We will continue to discuss our remaining concerns with these providers, escalating to separate, targeted enforcement action if necessary.
Social tariff take-up doubles in a year
Ofcom has also today published its annual Pricing Trends report, which this year includes the latest take-up and awareness figures for social tariffs.
Social tariffs are cheaper broadband and phone packages for people claiming Universal Credit, Pension Credit and some other benefits. Some providers call them ‘essential’ or ‘basic’ broadband.
Take-up of social tariffs increased to 380,000 in September 2023, up from 147,000 a year earlier, meaning more customers are benefitting from the savings the tariffs offer. However, awareness among eligible customers remains a challenge. Just over half (55%) of eligible households remain unaware of social tariffs; and while take-up is improving, it remains low as a proportion of all eligible households (8.3%).
For the first time, we have published take-up figures for each of the largest providers of broadband social tariffs.
Social tariff take-up: February 2022 to September 2023 (000s)
“No data” indicates that we did not collect social tariff take-up figures in a particular month: these values are estimated and do not represent actual take-up.
BT has the largest share of broadband customers taking a social tariff (72%), followed by Sky (13%), Virgin Media (6%), Vodafone (4%), KCOM (1%) and Shell Energy (0.3%).
These proportions are partly a reflection of the length of time over which different social tariff products have been available. TalkTalk is the only major broadband provider not to offer a social tariff.
Ofcom has fined Royal Mail £5.6m for failing to meet its First and Second Class delivery targets in the 2022/23 financial year.
Under Ofcom’s rules, each year Royal Mail is required to deliver 93% of First Class mail within one working day and 98.5% of Second Class mail within three working days, and complete 99.9% of delivery routes for each day on which a delivery is required.[1]
In 2022/23, Royal Mail’s reported performance results showed that it had only delivered 73.7% of First Class mail on time and 90.7% of Second Class mail on time, and completed 89.35% of delivery routes for each day on which a delivery was required.
Ofcom can consider evidence submitted by Royal Mail of any exceptional circumstances that may have explained why it missed its targets. Even after adjusting Royal Mail’s performance for the impact of industrial action, extreme weather and the Stansted runway closure, its First and Second Class performance was still only 82% and 95.5% respectively.[2]
This means that Royal Mail breached its obligations by failing to meet its targets by a significant and unexplained margin. This caused considerable harm to customers, and Royal Mail took insufficient steps to try and prevent this failure.
So we have decided to impose a fine of £5,600,000 on Royal Mail. The penalty includes a 30% reduction from the penalty we would otherwise have imposed, which reflects Royal Mail’s admissions of liability and its agreement to settle the case. The financial penalty is payable to HM Treasury within two months.
Ian Strawhorne, Ofcom Director of Enforcement, said: “Royal Mail’s role in our lives carries huge responsibility and we know from our research that customers value reliability and consistency.
“Clearly, the pandemic had a significant impact on Royal Mail’s operations in previous years. But we warned the company it could no longer use that as an excuse, and it just hasn’t got things back on track since.
“The company’s let consumers down, and today’s fine should act as a wake-up call – it must take its responsibilities more seriously. We’ll continue to hold Royal Mail to account to make sure it improves service levels.”
Prioritisation and issues in the operation of delivery offices
As part of our investigation, we considered concerns about how parcels and letters might be prioritised for delivery.
In the evidence we assessed, we did not identify any suggestion that Royal Mail’s senior management had directed the prioritisation of parcels over letters outside of recognised contingency plans, such as during the pandemic and during the industrial action in 2022/23.
However, we are concerned that Royal Mail appears to have insufficient control, visibility and oversight over local decision-making at certain delivery offices where high absence and vacancies may have led to customer operations managers – who are responsible for individual delivery offices – making “on the day” decisions about what to deliver.
Given ongoing high absence and vacancies, and delays in bringing service levels back up, we are concerned about the operation of delivery offices, which we view as fundamental to Royal Mail meeting its delivery targets.
Royal Mail must ensure its customer operations managers are provided with appropriate training, so they are equipped to make such decisions. We will be keeping a close eye on the company’s performance this year, and the steps it is taking to return delivery offices to pre-Covid practices.
A non-confidential version of our decision will be published in due course.
Liam Byrne MP, Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, has called for Royal Mail to deliver changes to its operations on time, following news of the firm’s fine for missing post targets.
He said: “The Business & Trade Committee welcomes the robust action taken by Ofcom. In our report on Royal Mail, published earlier this year, we said that the company had systematically failed to deliver its statutory Universal Service Obligation, and called on Ofcom to investigate this issue.
“The Universal Service Obligation is not an aspirational target – it is a matter of pride for posties across the land, a crucial connection for people in isolated communities, and the cornerstone of Royal Mail’s contract with the public. Everyone in the UK must have access to a consistent postal service, no matter where they live.
“Royal Mail must make it clear how they will fix this issue and secure the future of the USO. Unlike its apparent approach to the public’s post, it is critical that Royal Mail’s future is delivered on time.”
Royal Mail responded: “We are very disappointed with our Quality of Service performance in 2022-23 and acknowledge Ofcom’s decision today.
“Last year was uniquely challenging for Royal Mail. Quality of service was materially impacted by the long-running industrial dispute which included 18 days of strike action.
“We are pleased that Ofcom has acknowledged that elements outside of Royal Mail’s control had a significant impact on service levels and has adjusted the figures to 82% for First Class and 95.5% for Second Class mail.
“Quality of Service is extremely important to us. We take our commitment to delivering a high level of service seriously and are taking action to introduce measures to restore quality of service to the level our customers expect.”
Teenagers in the UK are turning away from traditional news channels and are instead looking to Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to keep up to date, Ofcom has found.
Ofcom’s News Consumption in the UK 2021/22 report shows that, for the first time, Instagram is the most popular news source among teenagers – used by nearly three in ten in 2022 (29%). TikTok and YouTube follow closely behind, used by 28% of youngsters to follow news.
BBC One and BBC Two – historically the most popular news sources among teens – have been knocked off top spot down to fifth place. Around a quarter of teens (24%) use these channels for news in 2022, compared to nearly half (45%) just five years ago.1
BBC One remains the most used news source among all online adults, although it is one of several major TV news channels to reach fewer people in 2022.2 News viewing to BBC One, BBC Two, BBC News channel, ITV and Sky News is now below pre-pandemic levels, resuming a longer-term decline in traditional TV news viewing.
TikTok clocks up millions more news users
Conversely, TikTok has seen the largest increase in use of any news source between 2020 and 2022 – from 0.8 million UK adults in 2020 (1%), increasing to 3.9 million UK adults in 2022 (7%).3 This brings it onto a par with Sky News’ website and app.
TikTok’s growth is primarily driven by younger age groups, with half of its news users aged 16 to 24. Users of TikTok for news claim to get more of their news on the platform from ‘other people they follow’ (44%) than ‘news organisations’ (24%).4
Yih-Choung Teh, Ofcom’s Group Director for Strategy and Research, said: “Teenagers today are increasingly unlikely to pick up a newspaper or tune into TV News, instead preferring to keep up-to-date by scrolling through their social feeds.
“And while youngsters find news on social media to be less reliable, they rate these services more highly for serving up a range of opinions on the day’s topical stories.”
TV news remains trusted
TV news remains the most trusted news source among UK adults (71%), with news on social media considered the least reliable (35%). CNN (83%) and Sky News (75%) are highly trusted by their viewers for news, while the public service broadcasters are also trusted by the majority of their viewers – BBC (73%), ITV (70%), Channel 4 (66%) and Channel 5 (59%). Sixty-seven per cent of newcomer GB News’s viewers trust its news reporting.
Among teens, half of YouTube and Twitter users think they provide trustworthy news stories (51% and 52% respectively). Despite its popularity for news, fewer than a third of youngsters (30%) trust TikTok’s news content.
Decline in print news appears to accelerate
The combined use of print and online newspapers among adults is 38% in 2022, a significant decrease from 2020 (47%) and 2018 (51%).
This is being driven by the substantial decrease of print newspaper reach in recent years, with the trend seen pre-pandemic appearing to accelerate, likely exacerbated by the pandemic.
Less than a quarter (24%) of UK adults use print newspapers for news in 2022, compared with more than a third (35%) in 2020, and two in five (40%) in 2018. Use of newspapers among teenagers fell from 19% to 13% in the last five years.
Online Safety Bill will force pornography websites to prevent underage access including by using age verification technologies
New measure goes further than the bill’s existing protections by bringing all websites offering pornography online into scope
Children will be better protected from online pornography under new measures to bring all websites that display it into scope of the government’s pioneering new internet safety laws.
On Safer Internet Day, Digital Minister Chris Philp is announcing the Online Safety Bill will be significantly strengthened with a new legal duty requiring all sites that publish pornography to put robust checks in place to ensure their users are 18 years old or over.
This could include adults using secure age verification technology to verify that they possess a credit card and are over 18 or having a third-party service confirm their age against government data.
If sites fail to act, the independent regulator Ofcom will be able fine them up to 10 per cent of their annual worldwide turnover or can block them from being accessible in the UK. Bosses of these websites could also be held criminally liable if they fail to cooperate with Ofcom.
A large amount of pornography is available online with little or no protections to ensure that those accessing it are old enough to do so. There are widespread concerns this is impacting the way young people understand healthy relationships, sex and consent. Half of parents worry that online pornography is giving their kids an unrealistic view of sex and more than half of mums fear it gives their kids a poor portrayal of women.
Age verification controls are one of the technologies websites may use to prove to Ofcom that they can fulfil their duty of care and prevent children accessing pornography.
Digital Minister Chris Philp said: “It is too easy for children to access pornography online. Parents deserve peace of mind that their children are protected online from seeing things no child should see.
“We are now strengthening the Online Safety Bill so it applies to all porn sites to ensure we achieve our aim of making the internet a safer place for children.”
Many sites where children are likely to be exposed to pornography are already in scope of the draft Online Safety Bill, including the most popular pornography sites as well as social media, video-sharing platforms and search engines. But as drafted, only commercial porn sites that allow user-generated content – such as videos uploaded by users – are in scope of the bill.
The new standalone provision ministers are adding to the proposed legislation will require providers who publish or place pornographic content on their services to prevent children from accessing that content.
This will capture commercial providers of pornography as well as the sites that allow user-generated content. Any companies which run such a pornography site which is accessible to people in the UK will be subject to the same strict enforcement measures as other in-scope services.
The Online Safety Bill will deliver more comprehensive protections for children online than the Digital Economy Act by going further and protecting children from a broader range of harmful content on a wider range of services.
The Digital Economy Act did not cover social media companies, where a considerable quantity of pornographic material is accessible, and which research suggests children use to access pornography.
The government is working closely with Ofcom to ensure that online services’ new duties come into force as soon as possible following the short implementation period that will be necessary after the bill’s passage.
The onus will be on the companies themselves to decide how to comply with their new legal duty. Ofcom may recommend the use of a growing range of age verification technologies available for companies to use that minimise the handling of users’ data. The bill does not mandate the use of specific solutions as it is vital that it is flexible to allow for innovation and the development and use of more effective technology in the future.
Age verification technologies do not require a full identity check. Users may need to verify their age using identity documents but the measures companies put in place should not process or store data that is irrelevant to the purpose of checking age. Solutions that are currently available include checking a user’s age against details that their mobile provider holds, verifying via a credit card check, and other database checks including government held data such as passport data.
Any age verification technologies used must be secure, effective and privacy-preserving. All companies that use or build this technology will be required to adhere to the UK’s strong data protection regulations or face enforcement action from the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Online age verification is increasingly common practice in other online sectors, including online gambling and age-restricted sales. In addition, the government is working with industry to develop robust standards for companies to follow when using age assurance tech, which it expects Ofcom to use to oversee the online safety regime.
Alex Salmond: ‘BBC are an affront to Scottish democracy’
ALBA has returned to Ofcom with new evidence of BBC bias in the election campaign.
In a further complaint to the broadcasting regulator (below) ALBA detail the different criteria to debates and coverage being applied by BBC Wales where the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party were accorded full participation in the debates programme.
ALBA leader Alex Salmond said: “The BBC are an affront to Scottish democracy. There have now been no less than seven opinion polls in this campaign showing an ALBA parliamentary breakthrough.
“The new evidence from Wales leaves them without a leg to stand on in terms of their biased Scottish coverage. But BBC bosses continue to ban us from the debates.
“The BBC also continue to refuse fair coverage on the flimsiest of grounds.
“Yesterday (Sunday) for example in one of the most important statements of the campaign ALBA women candidates rallied outside the Parliament in the declaration in support of protected sex based rights.
“The BBC claimed they couldn’t send a camera a few hundred yards because it was a Bank holiday weekend! They then interviewed Willie Rennie in the same area up a hill on his puff saying precisely zilch.
“Of course BBC presenters continue to talk about ALBA, often in disparaging terms. They just don’t allow us on to answer back just as the BBC hierarchy have kept us out of the leaders debates.
“In the last few days of the election the ALBA street and community initiatives will gain further ground and the BBC attempt to silence ALBA will fail.
“However as our letter to Ofcom makes clear the regulator should step in right now and put the BBC house in order.”
LETTER TO OFCOM
Dear Ms. Rose,
Our clients have considered the terms of the Election Committee’s decision of 28 April. We write to invite the Committee to reconsider that decision and to review matters urgently.
Our clients consider that the evidence of a structural bias within the BBC against them grows stronger as the campaign progresses and reaches its conclusion and further examples have occurred since the Committee’s decision.
The treatment by the BBC of other parties is simply inconsistent with its treatment of our clients. On Thursday of last week, the day after the Committee’s decision, the BBC broadcast the equivalent Leaders Debate as part of its coverage of the elections to the Welsh Senedd. Representatives of the Labour, Conservative, Plaid Cymru, Liberal Democrats and Abolish the Welsh Assembly parties participated in the first hour of that programme and those of Reform UK, the Green Party and UKIP in the second, half-hour part (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-56915347).
The Liberals currently have one seat in the Senedd and are averaging around 4% in current polling. The Greens have no seats and are averaging around the same. UKIP support in Wales is so low that it has not even registered on the last two polls. The AWAP is currently predicted to take two seats in the Senedd. Reform UK is averaging 1% in the polls and is predicted to take no seats
We set out an extract from the BBC’s 2021 Guidelines, applicable to Wales, in the undernote below, highlighting sections relating to “larger” and “smaller” parties. We would submit that our clients’ polling performance, and the developing political context in Scotland, is such that it would be simply perverse to exclude them from the upcoming BBC Leaders Debate.
A decision to do so would be simply illogical, entirely inconsistent with the treatment afforded to other parties elsewhere across the BBC’s output and simply inexplicable other than by animus towards our clients. What other possible explanation can be proffered for such an entirely inconsistent approach? No single example of that animus is going to be conclusive and any single example can be explained away but we would submit that that does not mean that each example can simply be ignored.
Some regard must be had to the pattern provided by the totality of each single example. An emblematic example of the BBC’s attitude towards our clients occurred yesterday. A number of our clients’ women candidates met outside the Holyrood Parliament building to publicise our clients’ policies on women’s rights. Our clients spoke in advance to the BBC about coverage of that event. The BBC explained that it would not be able to cover it as it did not have a camera in the area yet it managed, our clients later noted, to give coverage, in the same location, of the Liberals’ Willie Rennie.
We would submit that the behaviour of the BBC shows quite clearly that it is ignoring, and suggests that without intervention it will continue to ignore, the very clear exhortation in the Committee’s decision that it (the BBC) must, in short, keep matters under review to ensure that in determining the level and nature of the coverage which it gives our clients it gives proper weight and consideration to the developing political context in Scotland.
In addition to the matters outlined above, however, our clients are dissatisfied with certain aspects of the decision itself. They have obtained the opinion of Counsel on matters.
Our clients (and we) were surprised that the BBC, having decided not to take up the Committee’s invitation to be present at the substantive hearing, and to make oral representations at the same time and in the same forum as our clients, were nevertheless provided with details of Mr. Salmond’s extemporaneous submission and given a chance to comment, extensively, on it and to submit further material to the Committee.
Over and above that, Counsel’s advice is that the Committee’s decision is in error and susceptible to judicial review. His view is that the terms of paragraphs 3.20 and 3.21 are clearly erroneous and that the terms of the latter are self-contradictory. The 2017 changes expressly abandoned not just the list of larger parties but the whole concept of larger parties and the whole concept of having a list of them. The BBC in its own submissions supported that abandonment of these concepts. None of that makes any sense if the point was, as the second sentence of paragraph 3.21 asserts, simply to allow broadcasters to come up with their own definitions of “larger parties” and make their own lists of them.
If that had been the intention or purpose, there would have been no mention of concept, rather than the constant repetition of it which in fact features as part of the 2017 document. All that would have been needed was a simple statement that Ofcom would no longer be deciding who the “larger parties” were or providing a list of them and that it would be up to individual broadcasters to do so if they wanted to continue to use the concept.
It may be true, as asserted at paragraph 3.21, that the BBC using concepts which have been specifically discontinued by Ofcom (supported by the BBC) does not in itself contradict the Code, although in Counsel’s view even that is arguable.
What is undoubtedly true, in his opinion, is that in the specific case of the Alba Party the use of those discontinued and disapproved concepts by the BBC has caused a view to be taken of the appropriate coverage to be given which would not have been taken had those disapproved concepts not been applied.
Counsel does not accept that the approach taken by the BBC can be separated from what is required directly by the Code as easily as the Committee decision asserts. In fact, in his view, it cannot be separated at all. His view is that this flawed approach taints the whole Committee process and makes the outcome of it unfair.
Counsel also believes that Ofcom should not have gone back to the BBC after Mr. Salmond’s oral submission as the BBC had already indicated that their participation in the process was concluded.
He also points out that Ofcom selected a day at random and then based little or nothing in its decision on what actually happened on that day. The selection of a random day was a method of approaching things proposed by Ofcom and yet the results produced were then ignored or explained away as unrepresentative.
This is completely illogical. To ignore the fact that our clients did not feature at all on this random day in effect breaches the process which the Committee itself prescribed, negates its whole point and fails to recognise that the coverage on this random day in fact wholly vindicates our clients’ basic argument that they are unfairly treated by use of the disapproved concepts of “larger” and “smaller” parties rather direct application of the present Ofcom Code.
Counsel feels that the BBC’s admission of the AWAP, a party which he feels is comparable by analogy to our clients, into the equivalent debate in Wales is significant. Appendix 3 of the BBC guidance says in terms that AWAP can be given coverage “proportionate” to the four “larger parties” in Wales under certain circumstances but the BBC has failed to take a similar view of Alba. As a result, Counsel feels that even in terms of their own flawed guidance the BBC has acted inconsistently.
As we say, in light of all this, our clients are dissatisfied at the BBC’s continuing decision to exclude them from the upcoming Leaders Debate and we would ask that the Committee urgently reconsiders matters in light of the new material which we present and of the submissions made in this letter. Failing that, we will require to take our clients’ urgent instructions o the options for judicial review which Counsel advises are open to them.
Salmond says: “The BBC are the broadcasting Bourbons – they have learnt nothing from their blatant bias of 2014”
The BBCs coverage of the Scottish election campaign and what has been described as its “virtual blackout” of ALBA will be the subject of special Ofcom election Committee hearing today (Friday 23rd April).
ALBA leader Alex Salmond said: “The BBC’s record as a public service broadcaster in Scotland is lamentable and there is no better illustration than their conduct during this Scottish election.
“However, they are no longer a law unto themselves and I am grateful to Ofcom for convening an emergency meeting of their Election Committee to consider BBC coverage – or more accurately, lack of coverage – of ALBA. It is much appreciated that Ofcom have responded so quickly in fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure fair and balanced coverage of the Scottish campaign.
“The exclusion of ALBA from the leadership election debates is deplorable but even worse is the blackout from the news on a daily basis.
“On the odd occasion when they deign to interview ALBA representatives, the tone of the interviews has been unremittingly hostile.
“Aggressive questioning is perfectly acceptable if part of a range of coverage. However, inaccurate smearing is quite another when it dominates the few interviews BBC apparatchiks deign to grant ALBA.
“The BBC even allow smearing of ALBA by the other party representatives who are covered every day in every election programming with not even attempts by the interviewers to maintain any semblance of balance.
“Given that the BBC has fine some journalists and producers still working for them, we can only conclude that this is now the official house style to denigrate ALBA and the quest for Scottish independence. Indeed it is obvious that some journalists are asking questions to editorial direction.
“BBC outlets dominate broadcasting coverage and that means they dominate the election campaign during a pandemic. They have ample time and opportunity to show fairness to new parties emerging onto the political scene.
“The fact that they have so blatantly and so arrogantly failed to do so, shows that they are now a de facto state broadcaster rather than a public service one. The day that Greg Dyke was effectively sacked as Director General in 2004 is the day that the rot set in to the BBC and it has been downhill ever since.
“The BBC disgraced themselves in their coverage of the 2014 referendum and like the Bourbons they have learnt nothing.
“Every other broadcaster regulated by Ofcom have at least made some attempt at balance in their coverage and are not the subject of complaint by ALBA.
“STV for example did not (wrongly in ALBA’s view) include ALBA in their leader’s debate but did interview an ALBA MP immediately afterwards. Other radio and television outlets have all included ALBA in their round of leadership interviews and on a reasonably fair basis with the other parties.
“Ironically one of the BBC’s many personal attacks on me is that I co-host a political programme which is broadcast on RT. That programme, produced independently by a Scottish company, is a model of fairness and balance compared with anything the BBC now seem remotely capable of.
“ALBA are now calling time on the BBC exactly in the interests of political fairness and balance.”
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