March 17 (UPI) -- Britain on Monday put into effect provisions of its Online Safety Act, requiring every online organization to implement action against illegal content or face punishment by sizeable fine or national blockage.
Ofcom, Britain's independent communications regulator, said [in a press release Monday](https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/enforcing-the-online-safety-act-platforms-must-start-tackling-illegal-material-from-today/) that "from today, online platforms must start putting in place measures to protect people in the U.K. from criminal activity," and has started enforcing compliance.
All sites and apps had until Sunday to assess if anything deemed illegal appeared among their online content, whether how easily it could be discovered by users or how liable they were to facilitating criminal user-generated content.
As per Ofcom policy, platforms must now remove anything illegal as quickly as possible and do their best to lessen the possibility of said materials to appear at all.
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Ofcom stated Monday its assessments regarding compliance are underway and will continue henceforth.
The Act most notably targets online child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, and considers "assessing providers' compliance with their safety duties in this area" among its early top priorities.
Any platform that doesn't follow the law regarding CSAM is liable to be investigated and is subject to fines close to $20 million or equal to 10% of its proceeds, whichever is greater, or may be sued to be blocked in Britain altogether.
The Online Safety Act in total [covers more than 130 offenses](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/mar/17/social-media-companies-fines-uk-illegal-content-online-safety-act), ranging from harassment and "assisting or encouraging suicide" to terrorism, fraud and "unlawful immigration."
Technology companies, spanning "social media or video-sharing platforms, messaging, gaming and dating apps, forums and file-sharing sites." are required to "mitigate the risk of these occurring on their platforms."
Ofcom Enforcement Director Suzanne Cater said in the press release that "Platforms must now act quickly to come into compliance with their legal duties," and that "any provider who fails to introduce the necessary protections can expect to face the full force of our enforcement action."