UK government publishes draft guidance on illegal content duties under Online Safety Act

The UK government has released draft guidance detailing how social media platforms must comply with illegal content duties under the Online Safety Act, including requirements to prevent and remove child sexual abuse material, handle illegal immigration content and tackle fraud. Ofcom is consulting on the draft codes of practice, which will require platforms to implement age-checking, content moderation and reporting mechanisms, with enforcement powers including fines of up to ten percent of global revenue for non-compliance.

Compliance frameworks mandate outcome but often leave the operational mechanism to platforms, many of which lack the technical capacity to detect nuanced patterns of harm as they develop in private conversation. Where a statutory duty requires a service to prevent child sexual exploitation and abuse, real-time detection of grooming escalation, solicitation of imagery and sextortion tactics becomes the critical control, particularly in direct messages where traditional content moderation arrives too late. Guardii's anti-grooming and anti-sextortion modules flag coercive exchanges and age-inappropriate contact as they unfold across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox, enabling a platform to satisfy its duty of care by intercepting harm before imagery is shared or a child is silenced, rather than retrospectively moderating material once the abuse has occurred.