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Owen Bennett

@owbennett.bsky.social
472 followers 327 following 249 posts

Now: Independent consultant and Fellow at the Hertie School. Then: Head of International Online Safety at Ofcom; Senior Policy Manager at Mozilla.

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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
'For de Souza, the language shouldn't be about "banning the children", but instead "banning the companies"'. The UK gov isn't planning to include an 'off-ramp' for companies whereby they can avoid a ban by offering age-appropriate services. That means it's a ban on companies AND a ban on children
Screenshot from BBC coverage on UK social media ban plans:

Children's Commissioner for England Rachel de Souza says under-16s across the country want to cut down on social media, but "don't know how".

On Monday she told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that "there is a groundswell from everyone that we need to get something done".

The consultation comes as Keir Starmer says "decisive" action is needed for under-16s on social media. For de Souza, the language shouldn't be about "banning the children", but instead "banning the companies".

"The children have done nothing wrong," she told Radio 4. "We are protecting children by not allowing these companies to have access to them."
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
I'll be delivering the seminar on the law and policy of harmful 'deepfakes', where we'll cover what deepfakes are, how they can cause harm, and how lawmakers in Ireland, the EU, and beyond have responded.
Owen Bennett, International digital policy expert; former Head of Online Safety Ofcom - AI and the rise of deepfakes
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Know anyone who has burning questions about how law is responding to the confluence of AI and social media? The 2026 instalment of the Law Society of Ireland's free annual Massive Open Online Course kicks off next week, and this year the focus is all things AI and social media law.
This year’s MOOC will provide participants with an insight into the rapidly developing impact and intersection of Social Media, AI and the Law. The course will offer an overview of recent advancements, delving into issues surrounding liability, regulation, privacy and data protection, social media bans, cybercrime and e-commerce. It will also explore the considerable impact on our work environment and daily lives, including digital manipulation and surveillance.  

Expert speakers, lawyers, public figures and academics will review the current state of play, demystify concerns, discuss the potential impact in the coming years, and much more.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
📢 Calling all UK online safety practitioners and enthusiasts I've created a free two-part introductory course on the UK Online Safety Act, as a starting point for lawyers, public affairs practitioners, or frankly anyone who wants to learn the fundamentals of the OSA and its implementation by Ofcom.
A screenshot of the course overview and what is covered in the two parts of the mini-course. The overview can be read on the course website: https://www.platform.courses/osa-mini
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
And finally, when it comes to children's online experience, there remains a politically unsustainable gap between what the law promised and what children are actually experiencing.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
3) The regulator - to the extent that an independent and impartial agency can under UK convention - has thrown its weight behind a new wave of government action against social media services.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
2) Ofcom is eager to stress that Snap has made a voluntary safety commitment to the UK regulator that the company - as of now - isn't offering anywhere else in the world. That's a bad look for the company and will undoubtedly create tension for them elsewhere.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
1) The companies have voluntarily agreed to share off-cycle risk assessments with the regulator before implementing product changes. This is a direct response to the Grok/X scandal, wherein the regulator was blindsided by the company's product roadmap in its supervisory engagement.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
My go-to on days like today:
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
A major and often forgotten features of the UK Online Safety Act is that it empowers Ofcom to direct companies to deploy advanced tech to identify and suppress CSAM and terrorist content. The regulator has today set out its views on how that tech should work www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safet...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Convince me that EU Council presidency venue choices are not a crafty attempt by mid-level civil servants to make the case to their political masters for investment in regional public transport. EU politicos are going to spend *a lot* of time in minivans with the EU presidency comes to Ireland.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
I spoke to the @thetimes.com about the UK's impending social media restrictions for teenagers. Until it is clear about what harms to children it is trying to mitigate, government is likely to make sub-optimum policy choices about the services to target and how. www.thetimes.com/uk/technolog...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
New DSA enforcement action against Meta for having under-13s on its services. While the DSA doesn't set out minimum age thresholds for access to social media, I suspect DG CNECT is relying on the risk management provisions that concern how companies set and enforce their terms of service.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
I'm excited to be a keynote at next week's Westminster Forum Projects conference on children's use of social media. I'll be sharing thoughts on how experiences from Australia, the EU, and elsewhere can inform the UK debate on social media restrictions, ahead of likely govt action this summer.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
The Australian government has set out its plans for a sweeping overhaul of the domestic online safety rulebook. AU was the world's first country to create comprehensive online safety rules back in 2021, but its approach looks increasingly dated (the EU DSA ushered in a regulatory paradigm shift).
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
An interesting reframing of the policy rationale for the AU social media ban, and one that lends itself more to the idea that the threat of bans should be negotiating leverage to extract child safety design concessions from companies. www.politico.eu/article/aust...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
On the US social media addiction cases: a very interesting point from @cgoanta.bsky.social re the unique power of private litigation as a vehicle for platform accountability. Unfortunately for those of us in the UK, the Online Safety Act fails to enable a private right of action shorturl.at/kikHR
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Deja vu when reading about the proliferation of social media bans across EU capitals It's precisely this kind of dynamic (pressure from below via national hate speech laws) that bounced the EU Commission down the path of overhauling the E-Commerce directive in 2019 www.linkedin.com/posts/sara-b...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
It was an honour to be a guest in @hutko.bsky.social's digital platforms course at the London School of Economics yesterday. A great discussion on regulatory strategy and design, and the game theory calculus that shapes regulatory enforcement in platform markets.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
Last week saw a strategic step-change in how UK regulators approach enforcement and compliance under UK rules to protect children online. I spoke to MLex about what it means for accountability and compliance. www.linkedin.com/posts/bfigue...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
A remote 'kill-switch' for a device owner whose phone has been stolen seems to me to be a reasonable idea. I wonder if industry's reticence to implement this to date is based on a reasonable technical or product policy rationale. www.ft.com/content/cfa7...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
It looks like last chance saloon in the UK for tech companies (and the government and regulator) to demonstrate to restless parliamentarians and parents groups why a social media ban isn't necessary. www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safet...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
"On the internet, no one knows you're a <checks notes> regulator". www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safet...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
New Zealand is moving towards a comprehensive online safety regulatory framework, with a new parliamentary report setting out recommendations for government. Amongst them: ➡️DSA-style gradated content responsibility ➡️A new independent regulator, styled on the UK's Ofcom and IE's CnaM
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
The UK government comms zeitgeist that insists on framing every activity as 'world-leading' or 'world-beating' has now infiltrated the traditionally dry domain of public consultations. Is nothing sacred?
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Looking forward to joining this @brusselsprivacyhub.bsky.social webinar on the international regulatory horizon for protecting children online. We'll be looking at the intersection between online safety and data protection; global regulatory coherence; and of course, social media bans for children.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Another day, another Ofcom fine levelled at a long-tail porn website for failure to adhere to the UK's age assurance requirements. Probably too late to change Aylo's mind about website-level age assurance. ⤵️
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
A stellar line-up to kick things off at the 2026 @dsaobservatory.bsky.social conference in Amsterdam, featuring @hutko.bsky.social, @rachelgriffin.bsky.social, @knightgtown.bsky.social, @cdteu.org, and Roberto Spano 👏
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
The data on this phenomenon are wild www.theguardian.com/money/2023/m...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
An eye-catchingly forthright assessment of EU-US diplomatic relations from President Marcon in an FT interview today. The hawkish view has been in the room since the onset of Trump II, but post-Greenland, it is clearly in the ascendancy. www.ft.com/content/b5b2...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
There is intensive public concern about the perceived deleterious impact of social media on children's wellbeing. In that context, this is a test case for whether the existing rulebook is sufficient to address those concerns. If it doesn't hold, the call for bans will gather momentum.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
I don't know if it's intentional or not, but amidst the more robust defending by the EU Commission of its rulebook in the face of US criticism, we're seeing the return of the descriptor for US tech uniquely associated with former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton. 'Too big to care'.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
At a UN summit in 2015, then German Chancellor Angela Merkel was overheard on a hot mic imploring Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to do more to tackle anti-migrant hate speech on his platform in Germany (1/n)
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
The regulator is (sensibly IMO) taking some of the heat out of calls for X to be access blocked in the UK. A useful regulatory tool to have in the back pocket, but it should only be used in the rarest of cases.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
The regulator is making very clear that it doesn't consider standalone AI chatbots to be covered by the UK rulebook. If lawmakers want to apply specific safety and accountability duties to these services, they're going to need to cook up new legislation (1/)2
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Good reporting by @frankhersey.bsky.social on Aylo's decision to cease compliance with the UK's age assurance requirements as of today. Ofcom's upcoming reports on age assurance implementation (July 26) and app stores (January 27) just got a whole lot more interesting. www.mlex.com/mlex/technol...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Multilateralism is hard at the best of times. Calling for greater multilateralism in 2026 feels like the punch-line of a bad joke. But in online safety regulation, the foundations are all there.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Interesting scoop by @danielthomasldn.bsky.social on steps taken by YouTube to frustrate third-party audience measurement on smart TVs. Under EU rules, media plurality is a systemic risk for which YT must facilitate independent research. Might offer a pathway through. www.ft.com/content/9493...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Aylo, the company behind Pornhub and other leading adult websites, will soon restrict access to the service for most of its UK users, so as not to have to comply with the Online Safety Act's age assurance duties.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
The European Commission's opening of an investigation into xAI is naturally going to get a lot of attention today. In another eye-catching enforcement-related update, the UK's Ofcom has seemingly extracted voluntary concessions from Snap regarding its management of online safety risks.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Exhibit n (via @wired.com) on why policy proposals starting from the premise of 'digital sovereignty' and 'strategic autonomy' should never get a free pass in policymaking circles, especially when they involve the shifting of ownership/control between private operators. www.wired.com/story/tiktok...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
As age assurance becomes a more entrenched feature of the global internet experience in 2026, the risk of trust-busting data protection breaches will invariably rise. Good to see this affirmation; let's hope it's backed up with robust supervision of age assurance deployments.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
The regulators' principles for age assurance deployments map on closely to existing guidance concerning the UK OSA (Part V) and the EU DSA (art. 28). These approaches appear to be emerging as a de facto global norm.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
Regulators are eager to demonstrate to the large industry players (particularly in the adult sector) that their compliance pays. For many of the largest adult services, opposition to age assurance stems largely from fears of distortive effects on the market arising from patchy enforcement.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
The paper reflects an emerging consensus amongst lawmakers and independent regulators in different jurisdictions regarding the inevitability of age assurance, in situations where the policy objective is age-appropriate experience or access bans for children.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
If the first few weeks are anything to go by, this year is likely to be another one of whirlwind developments for those of us working on online safety regulation globally. Amongst all the messy data points, there’s some overarching policy trends on which I’ll be keeping a keen eye (1/9):
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Urban mobility is amongst the lowest hanging fruits in the race to net zero. That we can't maintain the public policy environment that facilitates net zero in urban mobility (in this case, practices that reduce the incentive for individual car ownership) is a travesty.
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Several years ago, when doing postgraduate research into the regulatory failure that precipitated the 2008 financial crash, a causal factor that I came across repeatedly in the literature was the lack of political backing for FS regulators to do their job. www.politico.eu/article/us-s...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Sigh. Le Reset 2.0 threatens to be another circular round of futile cherry picks. The notion that 'the EU needs us more than we need them' on financial services is precisely why the sector *should* be part of HMG's mix for negotiations on Reset 2.0 . www.ft.com/content/8d9a...
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Owen Bennett @owbennett.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
Reflecting on the latest round of kite-flying and briefings, it's increasingly clear that there was a 'moment' post-UK 2024 general election when an ambitious reset of the UK's post-Brexit relationship was possible, and the UK government didn't seize it. It's unlikely to reappear in the medium-term.
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