{"id":17344,"date":"2026-05-24T10:02:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T17:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=17344"},"modified":"2026-05-24T10:02:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T17:02:06","slug":"5-tech-giants-let-uk-speech-regulator-preview-new-features","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/24\/5-tech-giants-let-uk-speech-regulator-preview-new-features\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Tech Giants Let UK Speech Regulator Preview New Features"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

These cooperating major megacorp social media platforms should be avoided. And the UK and Ofcom wanting to censor Americans and American platforms along with this type of cooperation paints a picture of where things are headed. Eventually you’ll be locked out of these platforms if not running a compliant operating system with compliant browser providing your digital identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/reclaimthenet.org\/facebook-instagram-roblox-snap-youtube-ofcom-preview-new-features<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Five tech giants just agreed to show a government regulator their homework before turning it in, even though the law never said they had to.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"Grungy<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Cindy Harper<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five of the biggest online platforms have for some reason just agreed<\/a> to let Britain\u2019s speech regulator Ofcom<\/a> preview new features before they launch. Facebook, Instagram, Roblox, Snap, and YouTube will now notify the regulator whenever they update risk assessments before making significant product changes, going beyond what the Online Safety Act requires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TikTok refused, saying it would notify Ofcom only \u201cwhere required.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is a pre-approval pipeline where a government regulator can pressure companies to alter features before users ever see them, without any formal legal process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meta\u2019s commitment deserves the most scrutiny. The company will deploy AI tools to monitor everyone\u2019s messages in order to \u201cdetect likely sexualised conversations between adults and teens in Instagram direct messages\u201d and report flagged accounts to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The timing is not subtle as Meta stripped end-to-end encryption<\/a> from Instagram DMs on May 8, 2026, citing low adoption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company never turned encryption on by default, never told most users it existed, and then used the low uptake it engineered as justification for removing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With encryption gone, Meta can now read every Instagram message, and it\u2019s immediately weaponizing that access as a scanning tool. Whether any human reviews these AI-generated flags before they reach NCMEC remains unclear from Ofcom\u2019s published documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snap committed to \u201chighly effective age assurance\u201d for all UK users over the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ofcom CEO Melanie Dawes told LBC that Snapchat is \u201cno longer going to be allowing adults to find kids randomly,\u201d calling the change \u201clong overdue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Snapchat was still surfacing adult strangers to 13-year-olds through its recommendation engine until forced to stop says more than any safety pledge. The fix applies only to UK users. Globally, the feature remains active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TikTok and YouTube both declined to make additional commitments, insisting their platforms are already safe for children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ofcom\u2019s own research says otherwise: 73% of 11-to-17-year-olds reported encountering harmful content over four weeks, primarily through personalized feeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with multiple platforms voluntarily expanding surveillance, Ofcom wants more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regulator has written to Secretary of State Liz Kendall requesting new powers to enforce minimum age requirements<\/a>, noting it is \u201cnot currently convinced\u201d that Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok will \u201ceffectively prevent children under 13 from accessing their sites and apps.\u201d Ofcom\u2019s data shows 84% of 8-to-12-year-olds are already on these platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The anonymous internet is being replaced by one that demands identity documents, biometric scans, or behavioral profiling as the price of participation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These cooperating major megacorp social media platforms should be avoided. And the UK and Ofcom wanting to censor Americans and American platforms along with this type of cooperation paints a picture of where things are headed. Eventually you’ll be locked out of these platforms if not running a compliant operating system with compliant browser providing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17345,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17344\/revisions\/17345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}