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Thursday, 11 September 2025

Online Safety Act: Ofcom’s super-complaints scheme will be used to censor “emerging online harms”

 The UK’s Online Safety Act is being used to monitor and censor online users, not only in the UK but worldwide. Now, Ofcom, the regulator implementing the provisions of the Act, is turning its attention to “emerging online harms.”

At the end of this year, new regulations will come into effect that allow for super-complaints to be made to Ofcom. Super-complaints are complaints made by designated organisations, including charities and consumer groups, on broad, emerging trends or widespread “online safety issues” across multiple platforms.

A super-complaint is a formal mechanism established under the Online Safety Act that allows designated organisations to raise concerns about systemic issues affecting users of regulated online services. Unlike individual complaints, super-complaints focus on broad, emerging trends or widespread problems across multiple platforms, rather than isolated incidents.

Eligible entities, such as consumer protection bodies or organisations representing users, can submit these complaints to trigger a specific regulatory response from Ofcom. The super-complaints regime is designed to complement Ofcom’s own research and horizon scanning, a forward-looking assessment of emerging risks and trends in digital services.

“The super-complaints regime, in line with the Act and recent Government regulations … will enable eligible entities to raise systemic issues that arise across services or, in exceptional circumstances, on one service, to our attention. We expect to consult on draft guidance for potential super-complainants in September 2025 and publish our final guidance in early 2026,” Ofcom’s roadmap to regulation of “online safety” states....<<<Read More>>>...