Lord Michael Grade, the chairman of Ofcom, has declared that the media watchdog is ready to rein in the “Wild West” of social media, after it published a code of practice last week.
A veteran of the media and broadcasting industry, Grade said he expects that platforms like X, Facebook, and Tiktok may resist the new rules, but he has warned there is “nowhere to hide.”
He said: “We’ve got the powers to go in and get all their algorithms and all their code and anything we want.
“They’ve had a free ride for a long time. It’s become a bit of a Wild West in some corners of the internet and on social media. But the mood in the free world — let’s call it that — is very much: ‘Now’s the time. We need to get a grip on this’,” Grade told the Sunday Times.
This week Ofcom published its draft Children’s Safety Code of Practice, a key feature of the Online Safety Act, passed last October.
The code, which is subject to a consultation, outlined the obligations of social media firms, including the taming of “toxic” algorithms and the improvement of age verification efforts.
Critics of Ofcom’s broader plan to sanitise social media and search engines under its new powers granted by the Online Safety Act either say the bill is impractical, does not go far enough, or is a vain attempt to control the vast amount of internet content.
Others have praised the regulator’s work. Emma Wright, technology lead and partner at Harbottle & Lewis, said: “Ofcom has clearly put a significant amount of work into this Consultation and is world leading in what it is trying to achieve.
“If it moves quickly on the implementation, in certain areas such as recommender algorithms it may serve to set the gold standard before the EU AI Act.
“It states much of its guidance is from industry consultation. If companies do wish to thoroughly implement the measures as set out by Ofcom it will require a cross disciplinary approach with engineers and data scientists engaging with compliance,” she added.
Grade’s career in television traces back to the early 1970s, where he ascended through the ranks of the BBC, Channel 4, and ITV.
He assumed the chairmanship of Ofcom in 2022 but his appointment drew criticism due to his prior remarks, where he disparaged the “woke warrior apparatchiks in Ofcom.”