Tech giants promise British regulator they will tweak platforms to protect kids online

Several major tech firms promised a British regulator they will make significant changes to their platforms to better protect children. The regulator, Ofcom, had required Roblox, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok to answer questions about their efforts to remove harmful algorithms, check kids’ ages and protect them from sexual predators by the end of April. All of the companies, except for YouTube and TikTok, said they would commit to certain changes. Snap told Ofcom that it will adopt every one of the agency’s recommended grooming protection steps outlined in the Illegal Harms Codes. For example, the platform will restrict how adults can contact children on Snapchat, and the platform will stop pushing children to grow their friendship groups by connecting with people they don’t know. The new protections apply only to children accessing Snapchat in the UK. Roblox told Ofcom it will give parents the ability to turn off direct chats for children under age 16, and Meta has said it will build a new setting that will hide teens’ lists of connections on Instagram by default.  Meta also will begin using AI to find “likely sexualized conversations between adults and teens in Instagram direct messages.” The tech giant
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