Ministers 'must up their ambition' if regulation is to tackle online harm

Proposed online safety laws designed to protect people from harm online are not enough to address how risks spread rapidly across platforms, the NSPCC has said.The warning comes after an Ofsted report into sexual abuse in schools highlighted increasing prevalence of online-related incidents, including sexual images being shared via apps such as WhatsApp and Snapchat and concerns about easy access to pornography.Among the recommendations issued to Government the schools watchdog said the findings should be considered when developing the Online Safety Bill, so it can “strengthen safeguarding controls for children and young people to protect them from viewing online explicit material and engaging in harmful sexual behaviour using social media platforms”.The current draft of the law focuses on pornography that is user-generated, meaning it may overlook commercial adult sites.The review highlighted how children use different apps to record and share abuse, jumping easily from Snapchat to WhatsApp, but the draft Online Safety Bill fails to adequately address how risks spread rapidly across platformsAndy Burrows, head of child safety online policy at the NSPCC, said the Government must extend legislation to stop children from accessing pornography wherever it is hosted on the internet, if the Bill is going to make a…
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