Summary

  • Ofcom's first statutory report on content harmful to children recommends moving body stigma and depression content from non-designated content into the Online Safety Act's priority category. The Secretary of State holds the power to change the list.
  • Ofcom's own evidence found no significant aggregate change in children's reported exposure during the first nine months of the child-safety duties. The report examines prevalence and severity, not individual providers' compliance.

Ofcom has written two new names on a card and slid it across the minister's desk. Its 22 October statutory report asks the UK government to put body stigma content and depression content in the Online Safety Act's priority category. The recommendation is narrow; the shift in authority is not. Today, these harms sit in the non-designated category, where a service's duties concerning them depend on the risks named in its latest children's risk assessment. A statutory listing would put both on the same footing as the existing priority harms for all services in scope.

The labels matter. Ofcom defines body stigma content as material that shames or stigmatises body types or physical features. Its definition of depression content covers material that promotes depression, hopelessness or despair: encouragement or a positive portrayal, including glamourising or romanticising it. That is a much more specific target than every conversation about mental health or body image. The current section 62 list already includes bullying, serious violence, dangerous challenges and other named priority harms. Ofcom wants to add these two to that list. It has not proposed moving them into the stronger primary-priority category, which includes pornography and content encouraging suicide, self-injury or eating disorders.

Why change the shelf? The full report says repeated exposure to these two kinds of material can accumulate into significant harm. Ofcom already identified them as non-designated harms in its 2025 Children's Register. The new advice says the evidence is sufficiently established to make their status explicit in statute. Under the present rule, protection concerning a non-designated kind turns on whether the provider has identified that risk in its own most recent assessment. Statutory priority status removes that particular hinge. The age groups judged to be at risk still define the protection duty.

The timing makes the filing harder to ignore. Ofcom says most UK children reported encountering at least one piece of harmful content within four weeks. Its tracker detected no significant change at an aggregate level in the proportion reporting exposure over the first nine months after child-safety duties took effect in July 2025. The report does not grade individual platforms or test the effectiveness of the Codes; it gives the government a prevalence record alongside a request to change the legal categories. A flat aggregate measure and a sharper statutory list are two separate facts on the same desk.

The final signature is elsewhere. Under section 219, the Secretary of State may amend sections 61 and 62 by regulation. Ofcom has sent the report to that office and recommends no other category changes now. If the minister accepts the two additions, Ofcom says it will update the relevant guidance and regulatory documents. It also plans a revised Children's Register by January 2027. The public record now has a clean next question: will the minister add the two precisely defined harms, and when will providers see the revised guidance?

Official sources