The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom.
It has a statutory duty to represent the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting competition and protecting the public from harmful or offensive material.
[3][4] Some of the main areas Ofcom regulates are TV and radio standards, broadband and phones, video-sharing platforms online, the wireless spectrum and postal services.
The new body, which was to replace several existing authorities, was conceived as a "super-regulator" to oversee media channels that were rapidly converging through digital transmission.
[10] In April 2015, Ofcom announced that telephone companies would have to provide customers with a set charge for the cost of calling numbers starting with 084, 087 and 09.
[16] In July 2022, Ofcom received additional tools to prevent, identify and remove any content that depicts child sexual abuse and exploitation.
Ofcom will be allowed to penalise those tech firms that do not comply, either by fines up to £18m or by 10% of the company's annual turnover, whichever amount is higher.
[22] On 22 July 2011, it was reported that Ofcom had begun an investigation into whether the phone-hacking scandal may have changed BSkyB's status as the "fit and proper" holder of a UK broadcasting licence.
[29] In 2010 Ofcom revoked the licences of four free-to-air television channels for promoting adult chat services during daytime hours and transmitting content that was too sexually explicit.
In 2012 Ofcom lodged a complaint with the Dutch media regulator regarding the content of adult chat television channels which are broadcast in the UK but licensed in the Netherlands.
[31] Based on a survey of 200 British respondents, Ofcom published in 2016 a list of about 50 words classified in four grades of offensiveness, from "milder" to "strongest".
[32] Ofcom regulates the UK telecoms sector, defining and enforcing the conditions by which all mobile and fixed-line phone and broadband companies must abide.
These 'general conditions' are wide-ranging rules relating to matters such as telephone numbering, emergency services, sales, marketing and interconnection standards.
These include:[58] Since 1 January 2021, Ofcom has defined hate speech as "all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance on the grounds of disability, ethnicity, social origin, sex, gender, gender reassignment, nationality, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, colour, genetic features, language, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth or age.
"[59] However, there is concern that Ofcom's broad definition of hate speech can easily result in the unjustified censorship of controversial opinions, however legitimate they might be.
[60] Ofcom has received criticism for incurring unnecessary costs as a result of "extravagant Thames-side offices" and a "top-heavy salary bill",[61] for inflexibility in its regulation of commercial radio,[62] and for "poor service".
"[64] The Qatar-based news media outlet was reported[65] to Ofcom in January 2017, following an exposé about Israeli diplomatic[66] corps irregularities and influence peddling amongst political and student groups in the UK.
After investigations exceeding eight months, Ofcom reported that Al Jazeera was in line with journalism standards and cleared the filmmakers of the allegations.
[67] In May 2011, Ofcom ruled that Press TV, an Iranian English-language satellite channel, was responsible for a serious breach of UK broadcasting rules and could face a fine for airing an interview with Maziar Bahari, the Newsweek journalist arrested covering the Iranian presidential election in 2009, that was obtained by force while he was held in a Tehran jail.
Press TV said that Bahari did not "dispute the truth and accuracy" of the extract of the interview, so it made "no logical sense" to require his consent.
[72] Ofcom's stated reasons for the appeal have ranged from "preventing terrorist attacks" on the sites of phone masts to "protecting the intellectual property" of the mobile telecommunications industry.
It was subsequently reported that the contract had not been put out to tender and that Huw Roberts and Nerys Evans held positions for both Deryn and Ofcom.
[86] Following the revocation, both the Chinese government and state media began targeting the BBC, accusing it of producing "fake news" in its coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China and the Xinjiang internment camps.
[90] Andrew Neil, the founder of GB News who has since left, has said that Ofcom needs to "grow a backbone and quick” regarding letting politicians host TV programmes.