Ofcom

Our new research into the nation's digital habits finds that UK adults now spend 4 hours and 36 minutes online every day on average. 🤳 Women spend more time on Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. 📱 While men spend more time on Quora, X, Reddit, LinkedIn and YouTube. 🔗 Read more insights from our report here: https://lnkd.in/e5Df-NHZ

Our latest research explores the differences in the online lives of men and women in the UK. 📱 Swipe for some of our key findings about people's digital habits and online experiences. 🔗 Read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/e5Df-NHZ

📢 Join our new Disinformation and Misinformation Advisory Committee! We've appointed Lord Richard Allan as Chair of our new Disinformation and Misinformation Advisory Committee. We’re now recruiting expert committee members to help advise Ofcom on promoting media literacy, exercising transparency powers, and how services regulated by the Online Safety Act should deal with mis/disinformation. 📅 Applications are open until 12 January 2025. This comes as our new research reveals: 🔹 4 in 10 UK adults encounter misinformation, mainly online. 🔹 Common topics include UK politics (39%), international affairs (33%), and health and medical info (25%). 🔹 45% feel they can confidently judge whether sources of information are truthful, and only 30% feel confident judging if content is AI-generated. Find out more about our committee, research, and media literacy work here: https://lnkd.in/ekCV7-42

At our Protecting and Empowering Women and Girls Online event, attendees shared powerful insights on how working together is key to tackling online harms. 🌐💜   We spoke to Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology,  Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales Nicole Jacobs, David Miles from Meta, Emma Pickering from Refuge, Morgane T. from Bumble, and Ofcom’s Jessica Smith.   Watch the video to hear their thoughts. 📽️

Thank you to everyone who joined our event yesterday to bring together government, charities, tech platforms and others working to tackle the harm women and girls face online. We know women and girls are more likely to experience harm online than men and boys. And our CEO Melanie Dawes, and the Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology delivered inspiring speeches committing action to address this. The event also included a panel session chaired by Cathy Newman, featuring expert insights from: - Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales, Nicole Jacobs; - David Miles from Meta ; - Emma Pickering from Refuge; - Author and TV personality, Georgia Harrison; and - Ofcom’s Jessica Smith. Finally Ofcom's Almudena Lara closed the event and set out the next steps from Ofcom. Early next year we will publish draft guidance on protecting women and girls online, and the expertise, experience and passion from all those at yesterday's event will be vital to developing this. Thank you to everyone who took part on the day. Together, we can help create a safer life online for women and girls.

It's International Fraud Awareness Week and protecting people from fraud is a key priority for Ofcom. Collaboration is crucial to achieving this. This new blog explains how we're working with the Financial Conduct Authority to tackle online fraud and scams.

It’s good to see Instagram bringing these changes in before regulation starts to bite, and we’ll be pressing for companies to do more to protect and empower their users. When the UK’s online safety laws are fully in force, the largest sites and apps will have to give people more control over what they see. https://lnkd.in/e56WWScA

🚀 Kickstart your career with Ofcom! Graduate scheme applications for 2025 are now open. Through our graduate programme, you’ll get to play your part in helping communications work for everyone. Whether you’re shaping policies, enforcing standards or driving research, our graduate scheme pathways offer a great opportunity to build a career that really matters. Pathways available include: 🔹 Policy, research and enforcement: Rotate across different projects over two years, from crafting new policies to helping enhance online safety. 🔹 Specialist: If you're passionate about engineering, economics or tech – our specialist pathways in these areas could be perfect for you. Our grads know what it takes to succeed, and they’re here to share their application journey with you. 🎥 Watch here. 👉 Start your journey today. Find out more and apply now 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dyJZKEun

🤝 Working together to help protect children online. Last week we met with online safety regulators European Commission DG CNECT and the Australian eSafety Commissioner in Brussels to share experience, best practices, and solutions for industry on how to improve the protection of children online. As we're finalising our Protection of Children statement, our discussions focused on key common pillars of our respective online safety policy work - including risk assessment and mitigation, age assurance, and safety-by-design. 🌍 The services we regulate and the harms we want to protect children from are global, so we emphasised the importance of collaboration and an international outlook. This roundtable discussion was the first in a series between the three regulators as we each continue our journey to implementing online safety rules. Thanks to all who joined us for a brilliant and productive discussion! 👏💡 #Regulation #OnlineSafety

🎉 Huge congratulations to Ofcom's Elizabeth Tebboth, named in the ReelWorld's 30 Under 30 'One to Watch' list!    From student radio volunteer to Senior Broadcast Licensing Executive, Beth’s passion for radio and dedication to broadcast regulation has garnered her a place on this list. We’re proud to see her recognised for her hard work within radio.   👏 Well done, Beth!   #BroadcastingSuccess #30Under30 #Ofcom