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Julia Hörnle

Julia Hörnle

Higher education teacher

Sep 16, 2026

speaker_0HOST
8:47
Um, so how did that gap open up?
8:49
So I guess initially Ofcom was ... 'cause an enormous task, because the Online Safety Act, as its title suggests, has the purpose of make the internet safety.
8:59
So its scope of application is extremely broad, ranging from, you know, suicide, self-harm, knife crime, um, harmful, um, memes which children might follow, through to, um, sexual abuse, hate speech, terrorist content, child sexual, sexual abuse.
9:21
So, so it's a long, long, broad act which covers many types of different content.
9:27
So it does that, and then the other issue I think Ofcom had to face was, um, that it basically has to allow innovation, but at the same time restrict illegal content and content which is harmful to children.
9:43
So there is clearly a, a tension here between, I guess, fundamental rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of expression, uh, privacy on the one hand, and harm prevention or illegal content prevention.
9:58
So Ofcom reacted to this tension, I think, in a very cautious way, initially focusing mainly on children s- child sexual abuse, so sexual content concerning children, as well as terrorist content, and it was mandated by government to focus on these two areas as priority areas.

21 MINS LATER

speaker_0HOST
31:04
Um, so I want to ask you how much of the beast can actually be tamed that way?

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