UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, has opened a formal investigation into TikTok to determine whether the social media platform is meeting its legal duty to protect children from harmful content.
The inquiry, announced on July 16, focuses on whether TikTok is doing enough to prevent children from seeing harmful material and whether its age-checking system can reliably identify young users.
The investigation comes after Ofcom reviewed how major online platforms protect children and published reports that raised concerns about children’s experiences on TikTok.
The regulator also released a separate report on age assurance on July 15, saying it has “serious doubts” about the effectiveness of age inference systems used by some social media companies.
Ofcom said that under the UK Online Safety Act, platforms that are likely to be used by children must take proportionate steps to keep young users away from harmful material. The law also requires platforms to use “age assurance that is highly effective at correctly determining whether or not a particular user is a child” when that is necessary to stop children from accessing harmful content.
Ofcom said its review of children’s online experiences found that, in some cases, age inference models, including those used by TikTok, “may have failed to correctly identify a significant proportion of children.”
The regulator also issued a broader warning to the industry.
“Our message to social media companies is clear: those which use age inference models to comply with their child protection duties should switch to other methods listed in our guidance as highly effective without delay,” Ofcom said in its report.
It added that companies choosing not to switch “must be able to prove using reliable and compelling evidence to Ofcom that their current method is highly effective.”
Ofcom said that opening an investigation does not mean it has concluded TikTok breached the Online Safety Act. The regulator will first use its legal powers to gather evidence before deciding whether any violations occurred.
The initial stage of the investigation is expected to take at least three months, and Ofcom said it plans to provide an update in October.
If Ofcom ultimately finds that TikTok violated the law, it can impose fines of up to 18 million pounds ($24 million) or 10 percent of the company’s qualifying worldwide annual revenue, whichever is greater.
In the most serious cases, the regulator can also ask a court to require payment providers, advertisers, or internet service providers to stop working with, or block access to, the service in the UK.
Wider Enforcement
The TikTok case is the latest in a series of investigations launched by Ofcom since key parts of the Online Safety Act took effect on July 25, 2025.Over the past year, the regulator has opened investigations into several social media and user-to-user platforms due to concerns about illegal or harmful content.
On June 10, 2025, Ofcom opened an investigation into 4chan to examine whether the discussion platform had carried out proper illegal-content risk assessments, implemented adequate safety measures, and complied with statutory information requests.
In August 2025, 4chan and Kiwi Farms filed a lawsuit in the United States against Ofcom, claiming that enforcement of the Online Safety Act violates Americans’ right to free speech.
“This lawsuit seeks to restrain Ofcom’s conduct and its continuing egregious violations of Americans’ civil rights, including, without limitation, to the right of freedom of speech,” the companies said in the joint legal filing.
U.S. lawyer Preston Byrne, who is representing the plaintiffs, said in an August 2025 post on X: “If someone in the UK calls me on the telephone, I am not suddenly teleported to England and subject to its rules. When someone in the UK navigates to a US webserver, that server isn’t teleported to England either.”
There are “literally a zillion ways that the UK could achieve the stated aims of the Online Safety Act without censoring the global web,” he added.
In March, a 4chan attorney said in a statement to CBS News that the platform doesn’t accept that it has any obligation to obey UK law over its constitutionally protected speech.
Ofcom issued its final decision on April 21, finding that 4chan had breached the Online Safety Act.
The regulator imposed total penalties of 520,000 pounds ($702,293) on the platform, saying it had breached its duties regarding illegal content risk assessment, illegal content safety, and children’s safety.
In January, Ofcom launched an investigation into X after reports that the platform’s Grok AI chatbot had been used to generate and distribute deepfake sexual images and child-like imagery.
The regulator is examining whether X adequately assessed those risks, limited the spread of illegal content, and removed it quickly when identified.
Three days after the investigation was announced, X said it had implemented measures to prevent the Grok account from being used to create intimate images. Ofcom welcomed those changes but said the formal investigation remains ongoing while it gathers evidence to determine whether X breached its duties under UK law.
Ofcom also opened investigations into Telegram, Teen Chat, and Chat Avenue in April over concerns about child sexual abuse material and online grooming.
Telegram denied Ofcom’s allegations in a statement published on its official Telegram channel on April 21, saying it was “surprised by this investigation and concerned that it may be part of a broader attack on online platforms that defend freedom of speech and the right to privacy.”
The company also said it had “virtually eliminated the public spread of [child sex abuse material] on its platform through world-class detection algorithms and cooperation with NGOs.”
The regulator said it is examining whether those services have met their legal duties to protect users from illegal content and activity.
The Epoch Times reached out to Teen Chat and Chat Avenue but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
The TikTok investigation marks the first major Ofcom case focused specifically on whether a leading social media platform’s age-assurance system is sufficiently effective to protect children from harmful content under Section 12 of the Online Safety Act.
