Ofcom's consultation on draft guidance for super complaints under the Online Safety Act 2023 - Which? response

Executive Summary

Which? welcomes this opportunity to respond to Ofcom’s consultation on draft guidance for super-complaints under the Online Safety Act 2023. Ofcom’s draft guidance outlines which entities are eligible to make super-complaints, explains how super-complaints should be made, and outlines how Ofcom will respond to super-complaints. 

We strongly support the super-complaints regime, and believe that Ofcom has in many places taken an overly restrictive interpretation of the super-complaints regulations. Ofcom’s guidance, if implemented unchanged, will make it very challenging for organisations with robust evidence of harm to raise super-complaints.

To achieve the objective of the super-complaints regime, Ofcom must lower some of the requirements in its guidance. We have suggested a number of changes to Ofcom’s guidance, all of which are designed to make the regime more accessible for organisations with crucial evidence of systemic harms to participate. 

We are particularly concerned about the lack of detail around Ofcom’s ability to reject a super-complaint if some or all of the matter is being considered by a UK court or by another UK regulator. In our view, if this power is interpreted too broadly, Ofcom could end up rejecting important and legitimate super-complaints simply because some tangential aspect of the complaint is already being considered by a court or another regulator. We believe Ofcom should update the guidance to clarify that it will only exercise this power if there is genuinely no public interest in it considering the super-complaint.