Service Associated with Recalled Exposure to Harmful Content (11-17y)

This chart from the Ofcom Children’s Online Safety Tracker 2025 illustrates the percentage of UK children aged 11–17 who associate specific online services with their exposure to harmful content. The data covers the period before and four months after the introduction of the UK Online Safety Act and Ofcom’s Children’s Codes. These introduced strict 'safety by design' duties, including re-engineering algorithms to prevent 'rabbit holes' of harmful content and removing addictive features for minors. Despite the introduction of these new regulatory duties, recalled exposure to harmful content increased on some platforms. TikTok remains the primary site of exposure, with a 9 percentage point increase to 53%, while Snapchat also saw a rise to 31%. Conversely, Facebook was the only major service to see some decrease in associated harm, falling from 38% to 31%. The data also highlights the prevalence of harm in gaming environments, with Roblox (25%) and Minecraft (13%) emerging as notable sites of concern.