Knife crime remains a serious concern in the UK, with devastating consequences for victims, families, and communities.
In the year to March 2024, in England and Wales, violence involving the use of a knife or sharp object claimed the lives of 57 young people, 17 of those were children under 16 years old.
This week is Knife Crime Awareness Week, and as the UK’s online safety regulator, we recognise the link between online safety and knife crime.
We are concerned about how online content can be used to encourage violence using weapons, including knives. And we also know that knives and other weapons can be bought online. Both factors present a particular risk to young people, as they contribute to the normalisation and glamorisation of carrying – and potentially using – knives.
Protecting children and young people is a priority for Ofcom in our online safety work, and the Online Safety Act sets out the responsibilities in protecting children and young people from illegal and harmful content.
Regulating online services is a vital step in preventing harmful content from reaching children, reducing the risk of real-world violence, and supporting wider efforts to tackle knife crime across society.
We are taking action to protect UK users from viewing harmful content related to knives and other offensive weapons. Under the Online Safety Act, online services must now protect people in the UK from content related to the sale of illegal knives and weapons, as well as content promoting violence. Sites and apps must also take action to prevent children from encountering violent content.
Regulating online services is a vital step in preventing harmful content from reaching children, reducing the risk of real-world violence, and supporting wider efforts to tackle knife crime across society.
We are taking action to protect UK users from viewing harmful content related to knives and other offensive weapons. Under the Online Safety Act, online services must now protect people in the UK from content related to the sale of illegal knives and weapons, as well as content promoting violence. Sites and apps must also take action to prevent children from encountering violent content. Last December, we published our final Illegal Harms Statement, outlining how online platforms must tackle illegal content found on their services, including material related to the sale of illegal knives and offensive weapons. We’ve provided detailed guidance to help platforms identify and manage this content.
Additionally, we recently published our final Protection of Children statement. This introduces the Protection of Children Codes and Guidance for search services and user-to-user services, built on existing rules that set out clear legal duties for online services that are likely to be used by children in the UK. Services must take sufficient steps to prevent children from seeing content that promotes, glamourises or normalises violence or the carrying of offensive weapons.
Next steps
If we determine that an online service provider is failing to implement adequate and robust safeguards against harmful violent content or the sale of weapons including knives, we will take swift decisive enforcement measures. These could include platforms being required to make specific changes, financial penalties, and in extreme circumstances, particularly when users of a platform are predominately children, we will pursue legal actions to restrict access to these platforms in the UK.