The BBC could soon be fined for what it posts on social media

For nearly a decade, Ofcom has regulated what the BBC broadcasts while having almost nothing to say about what it publishes online.

Currently, a BBC News article, push notifications, and posts on the corporation’s X account all sit outside the regulator’s enforcement powers, governed instead by the BBC’s own Editorial Guidelines and a “non-binding opinion” arrangement.

That era is now ending as Ofcom has published a new consultation on a new BBC Online Material Code. Once the Code takes effect, the BBC will face binding rules and the threat of fines of up to £250,000 across its websites, apps and social media accounts.

What the new code covers

The scope of the new Code is notably quite broad and applies to content on BBC news and sports websites, BBC apps on any device, educational resources, and any BBC-branded social media account.

That last category includes reposts, meaning that if an official BBC account amplifies a post from an individual journalist’s personal account, the repost itself falls within Ofcom’s remit.

Personal accounts of BBC staff remain out of scope, as do iPlayer and BBC Sounds (which are already regulated as on-demand services), the World Service, comment sections and user-generated content.

Ofcom’s own research found the BBC was the most-used direct-access website or app for news in the UK, and the consultation is explicit that declining linear viewing drove the change.

Broadcast rules but rebuilt for the feed

Rather than inventing a new rulebook, Ofcom has ported the Broadcasting Code’s six core sections – protecting under-eighteens, harm and offence, crime and disorder, religion, due impartiality, and elections 0 and stripped out everything that only makes sense on a broadcasting schedule.

One item which will not carry over is the 21h00 watershed. Ofcom concedes that the 21h00 boundary, the central mechanism of child protection in British broadcasting for decades, has no meaning when content is reached through search, sharing and algorithmic recommendation.

In its place, the BBC must take “all reasonable steps” to shield under-eighteens from unsuitable material, using tools such as age ratings, content warnings, parental controls and age assurance, the regulator said.

Impartiality rules have been similarly translated. The concept of a “programme” becomes an “online item” – an article, video or livestream that can be updated over time while remaining the same item – and balance can be achieved across “a series of editorially linked online items”, provided the linkage is properly signalled to readers.

Notably, politicians are barred from authoring BBC news stories, an addition that acknowledges online news is frequently a written, bylined medium.

How enforcement will work

Complaints will follow the established “BBC First” process: audiences must complain to the corporation within 30 working days of material being “first posted” before escalating to Ofcom.

The regulator has also had to grapple with a distinctly digital question – what “first posted” means for an article that is continuously revised. To get around this, it has added a proviso that a ‘significant editorial intervention’, such as a material correction or a change that alters an item’s meaning, can restart the clock.

Where breaches are serious, deliberate, repeated or reckless, Ofcom will be able to fine the BBC up to £250,000, direct it to remove or amend online material, restrict access to it, or require the corporation to publish a correction.

Ofcom said that the additional regulatory burden on the BBC should be modest, since the Editorial Guidelines already cover the same ground and are in places stricter.

While this is true, the BBC has effectively been ‘marking its own homework’ when it comes to content posted online. It will now answer to a regulator with the power to publish breach findings against the national broadcaster’s digital journalism and fine it for the worst failures.

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