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How many people were charged under the UK's Online Safety Bill in 2025?
Executive summary
Available reporting in the provided sources does not give a single, definitive tally of how many people were charged under the UK’s Online Safety Act (the law often called the Online Safety Bill in its passage) in 2025; specific prosecutions are sparsely reported. Wikipedia’s summary notes "the first conviction under this section occurred in July 2025" in a named case, but none of the supplied sources publish an overall count of people charged under the Act for 2025 (not found in current reporting) [1].
1. What the recordable items in these sources actually show
Multiple sources describe the Act’s enforcement powers — including criminal liability for senior managers, fines up to £18 million or 10% of global turnover, and powers to block services — and note that enforcement began to be phased in during 2024–2025 [2][3][4]. The House of Commons Library and trade analyses outline Ofcom’s staged implementation and consultations through 2025, but these documents focus on regulatory design, fees and codes rather than counting criminal charges or prosecutions [5][6].
2. The one reported criminal case flagged in the coverage
Wikipedia’s Online Safety Act entry records that “the first conviction under this section occurred in July 2025,” naming a defendant, Tyler Webb, who used Telegram to encourage self-harm in a victim and was convicted under the Act’s relevant section [1]. That entry is the only supplied source that mentions a specific conviction or criminal prosecution tied to the Act in 2025; other supplied sources do not repeat or quantify prosecutions tied to the law [1].
3. Why counting “people charged” is difficult from these sources
The supplied materials are dominated by legal briefs, industry analysis and implementation timelines that are focused on duties, codes, risk assessments, and Ofcom’s enforcement architecture — not a running ledger of criminal prosecutions [7][8][9]. Ofcom’s public guidance and legal instruments referenced here (fees regulations, codes of practice) are administrative and regulatory; criminal charges would typically be recorded in court or police communications, which are not included among the provided items [10][5].
4. Alternative perspectives and what they imply about enforcement intensity
Legal and policy commentary in the supplied set portrays a strong enforcement regime that could produce criminal charges in serious or wilful non‑compliance — from per‑case criminal liability for managers to service blocks and large fines — suggesting the government designed the Act to enable prosecutions where appropriate [2][3][4]. Civil‑liberties critics such as EFF (represented in the sources) warned the Act could pressure companies to scan content in ways that raise privacy concerns, a perspective implying vigorous enforcement could trigger high‑profile legal fights [11]. Both viewpoints in these sources point to capacity and appetite for enforcement, but they do not translate here into a numerical count of charged individuals [2][11].
5. What the supplied reporting omits — and why that matters
None of the provided items contains an Ofcom press release, police/count court statistics, or a government summary listing the number of charges brought under the Act in 2025; therefore we cannot confirm any aggregate figure from these sources alone (not found in current reporting). That omission matters because public understanding of enforcement depends on transparent publication of enforcement actions; the supplied legal and industry analyses tend to emphasise rules and penalties rather than the empirical record of prosecutions [7][8][6].
6. How to get a reliable number if you need one
To obtain an authoritative tally you would need one of: (a) an Ofcom enforcement report or press release enumerating prosecutions under specific criminal sections; (b) Ministry/Justice or police statistics cross‑referencing the Online Safety Act; or (c) consolidated court-record searches for cases charged under the Act’s criminal provisions. Those specific documents are not included in the supplied search results and thus cannot be cited here (not found in current reporting) [5][10].
7. Bottom line for readers
From the sources provided, we can only confirm that at least one conviction tied to the Act’s criminal provisions was reported as occurring in July 2025 [1]. Beyond that single reported conviction, the supplied materials do not state how many people were charged under the Act in 2025; any broader claim about total charges is unsupported by the current reporting (not found in current reporting).