The communications watchdog has told technology platforms they must have a plan in place and act quickly to stop the spread of illegal content in a crisis such as a terror attack.
Ofcom said illegal content going viral online can “pose a serious threat to public safety”, citing the riots which broke out after the Southport murders in 2024.
In the days following the murder of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, violence erupted across England, in part fuelled by false information circulating online about the attacker’s identity and background, including false claims that he was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK the previous year.
In May last year His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services called on social media companies, Ofcom and the police to take quicker action to tackle false information in times of disorder.
Then-head of the watchdog, Sir Andy Cooke, said dramatic events fuel greater use of social media sites and tech companies “have social responsibility”.
Calling on Ofcom to have beefed-up powers to take posts down more quickly, he said the Online Safety Act has “little or no bearing on the real-time effects of online content during instances of rapidly evolving, widespread disorder”.
On Tuesday, Ofcom said it was strengthening its online safety codes of practice, adding new measures “under which platforms should have protocols in place to respond to spikes in illegal content during a crisis”.
Illegal content can include false communications and state-sponsored misinformation.
The regulator also said a real-world crisis such as a terror attack being live-streamed could cause a spike in illegal content online, including the sharing of hate speech or content created by a terrorist group.
Tech firms should act “promptly and effectively during a crisis, to manage a significant increase in illegal content appearing and address the risk of their platform being used to commit or facilitate criminal offences”, Ofcom said.
The regulator added that it will expect platforms to “deploy a temporary response team as soon as possible when a crisis occurs” and carry out analysis of its response afterwards, including what decisions were taken and how effective their plan was.
Ofcom added that large platforms – which would cover the biggest social media providers in the world such as Meta – should put in place a dedicated communication channel “through which crisis-related information may be shared by law enforcement agencies, to support faster and more coordinated public safety efforts”.
The update to the codes must be laid before Parliament by Government before coming into effect and no timeline has yet been set out.
The government has been contacted for comment.
