Regulators in UK, EU, and Australia ramp up oversight of tech platforms over harmful content and practices

Authorities have announced new measures and fines targeting technology firms for failing to protect users from scams, addictive design, illegal sales, and service failures.

• Ofcom has published draft measures requiring platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok to take action against scam adverts or face fines of up to £18m or 10% of global turnover.
• The European Commission has said Meta must disable addictive features such as infinite scroll and autoplay on Facebook and Instagram or risk a fine of up to 6% of its global annual turnover.
• Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration said it had removed over 8,500 unlawful vape advertising posts from social media and issued more than $1.5m in fines between January 2024 and June 2026.
• The Bank of England has been given powers to regulate cloud and tech service providers Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Oracle, and Microsoft as critical third parties for financial stability.

Latest developments

• Which? has found 150 unsafe baby products still listed on major online marketplaces despite official safety warnings and product recalls.
• The consumer group has urged the UK government to make online marketplaces liable for product safety after third-party sellers continued offering recalled items.
• The European Commission is preparing new rules that would allow it to directly fine digital platforms for using dark patterns that hide costs or make subscriptions difficult to cancel.