The UK Government has said it will take urgent action to toughen up the Online Safety Act in an attempt to shield the most vulnerable people from dangerous content.

Under the plans, the Government intends to introduce stricter legal requirements on tech companies to hunt down material that encourages or assists serious self-harm, with the Online Safety Act being amended to make such content a ‘priority offence’.

While platforms already have to take specific steps to protect children from self-harm content, the Government said the beefed-up rules recognise that adults battling mental health challenges are equally at risk.

The new regulations mean that content encouraging or assisting serious self-harm will be treated as a priority offence for all users, with the Government hoping it can curb the proliferation of this material before it can destroy lives and tear families apart.

The change will trigger the strongest possible legal protections with the aim of compelling platforms to actively seek out and eliminate self-harm content before it can reach users, rather than simply reacting after someone has already been exposed to it.

“This government is determined to keep people safe online,” said Liz Kendall, the UK Government’s new technology secretary.

“Vile content that promotes self-harm continues to be pushed on social media and can mean potentially heart-wrenching consequences for families across the country.

“Our enhanced protections will make clear to social media companies that taking immediate steps to keep users safe from toxic material that could be the difference between life and death is not an option, but the law.”

Campaigners have been warning that the UK’s flagship online safety law was not fit for purpose, with particularly strong criticism coming from suicide prevention charity the Molly Rose Foundation.

Last year, the charity found that despite their reach, major platforms like Instagram and Facebook were responsible for only 1% of all suicide and self-harm content that was flagged, with the foundation finding at the time no evidence that Meta was implementing its commitments to restrict harmful suicide and self-harm content from children’s feeds.

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That trend seems to have continued, with the Molly Rose Foundation last month accusing Instagram and TikTok of ‘gaming’ the Online Safety Act and ‘putting young lives at risk’ with recommender algorithms it claims push suicide, self-harm and depression content to younger users.

Posting to social media on the news that the Government intends to revisit the Online Safety Act’s legal provisions, Andy Burrows, CEO of the Molly Rose Foundation, said: “Delighted that Liz Kendall’s first announcement…is to upgrade self-harm offences to become a priority offence under the Online Safety Act. 

“Molly Rose Foundation has been calling for this much-needed step to ensure the regime can better respond to rapidly emerging new threats, including self-harm grooming being perpetrated at scale by com groups. We’re hugely grateful that the Government has chosen to act.”