4chan fined £450,000 for not protecting children from online pornography

Ofcom has today fined 4chan £450,000 for not having age checks in place to prevent children from seeing pornography on its site.

The UK's online safety watchdog has also fined the company £50,000 for not assessing the risk of illegal material appearing on its platform, and £20,000 for not setting out in its terms of service how it protects people from criminal content.

Age checks help prevent kids seeing porn

Last year, the Children's Commissioner found that 59% of children had stumbled across pornography accidentally, without looking for it. Since then, rules under the UK's Online Safety Act have come into force, meaning sites that host pornographic material must use highly effective age assurance to prevent children from readily accessing that content.

As in other industries, companies that provide an online service to people in the UK must comply with UK laws. The Online Safety Act is concerned with protecting people in the UK. It does not require platforms to restrict what people in other countries can see.^[1]

Data shows that nearly 80% of the top 100 pornography sites in the UK now have age checks in place. This means that on average, every day, over 7 million visitors from the UK are accessing pornography services that have deployed age assurance.

4chan fined for failing to protect children

Following investigation, we have fined 4chan £450,000 for failing to comply with the UK's online age check requirements. The platform must now implement highly effective age assurance by 2 April or face a daily penalty of £500.

We have also fined 4chan £50,000 for failing to assess the risk of people in the UK encountering illegal content on its site. This is fundamental to keeping users safe - in order to put in place appropriate safety measures to protect people, especially children, providers must first understand how harm could take place on their platforms.

The company must now carry out a suitable and sufficient illegal content risk assessment by 2 April or face a daily penalty of £200.

Additionally, we have fined 4chan £20,000 for failing to specify in its terms of service how individuals are to be protected from illegal content, which it must now do by 2 April or face a daily penalty of £100.

Suzanne Cater, Director of Enforcement at Ofcom, said: "Companies - wherever they're based - are not allowed to sell unsafe toys to children in the UK. And society has long protected youngsters from things like alcohol, smoking and gambling. The digital world should be no different.

"The UK is setting new standards for online safety. Age checks and risk assessments are cornerstones of our laws, and we'll take robust enforcement action against firms that fall short."

Payment of fines

We have issued 16 fines under the Online Safety Act against six companies, totalling nearly £4 million, several of which have not yet passed their deadlines to pay. The Act states that we must allow firms a reasonable amount of time to pay a fine, which must be at least 28 days.^[2]

If a company fails to pay a fine, there are various options open to us for seeking recovery of that debt - including through the courts.

Where appropriate, if a provider fails to comply with its safety duties, we can also seek a court order for 'business disruption measures', such as requiring payment providers or advertisers to withdraw their services from a platform, or requiring Internet Service Providers to block a site in the UK.

Notes to editors

1. More information on jurisdiction is available here.
2. See Section 137 (5)(e) and (6) of the Online Safety Act.