Clean Up The Internet made a submission to Ofcom’s consultation on its Online Safety Act transparency reporting guidance. We set out why platforms should be required to provide detailed and specific information relating to risk factors on their platform, including fake and anonymous accounts. We make some suggestions as to what this information should cover.
Social media platforms have long sought to obscure and obfuscate the problems associated with fake and anonymous accounts, not least because such accounts serve to inflate the user numbers which they can claim to advertisers and investors. For example, Facebook has long claimed to operate a “real name” policy, despite little enforcement of this part of its terms and conditions, whilst Twitter was found, in 2021, to be defining “Mickey Mouse” accounts as “not anonymous” in order to play down the problem of anonymous racist abuse. Ofcom will need to require sufficiently specific and detailed information to cut through this.
Transparency has the potential to drive change both through enabling greater public scrutiny and user choice, and by providing insights which can be used by independent civil society groups, and the regulator, to develop proposals for future regulation. We look forward to engaging with Ofcom further as it develops its plans.
You can read our full submission here:
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