Ofcom, the telecommunications regulator, has reportedly been plundering staff from Big Tech companies as it prepares to further regulate the internet with its new powers legislated by the Online Safety Act.

According to a report from the Financial Times, Ofcom has added 350 new hires to tackle online safety regulation, with senior hires from Meta, Google, and Microsoft, eyeing to add 100 more jobs this year.

The hires as a response to the new powers for Ofcom outlined in the Online Safety Act, a landmark piece of legislation set to retroactively regulate the online world in an attempt to protect users, especially children.

Recommended reading

• Users Want More Fact-checking From Social Media Networks
• EU to Big Tech: Crack Down on Disinformation, Or We’ll Crack Down On You
• Ofcom: Tech Firms Must Clamp Down on Illegal Online Content

During its long legislative life, the Online Safety Act faced scrutiny and controversy as legislators grappled with the dichotomy of online safety and online freedom. Issues around encryption, freedom of speech, protecting the most vulnerable, and managing social media for children drowned the bill in a debilitating quagmire of some of the greatest questions of the technology age.

Now, set in stone, much of the regulatory powers will be piloted and carried out by Ofcom. It will be no small feat, as this is somewhat a world first – the internet has not faced such an overhaul of regulation since the 1990s, and with the advent of social media, the online world has transformed dramatically.

Ofcom has already been testing the waters of their newfound regulatory powers, and has produced its first guidance for online companies. The guidance included rules mainly aimed at regulating and protecting children’s experiences on social media by limiting their suggested friends list and and making children’s profiles unseeable to other users.

While their enforcement powers, including their ability to fine and even jail executives for breaches of the law, will come into effect over the next couple of years, the guidance aims to alert companies to the rules they will soon need to comply to.

The swath of new hires is likely to aid its behemoth regulatory task, but Ofcom may still struggle with the unprecedented regulation as the UK sails into uncharted regulatory waters.