Ofcom’s job is to make sure online services, like sites and apps, meet their duties to protect their users.
Find out more about how we regulate online services.
Contact the service first
Many online services already provide ways for you to report harmful content or behaviour, or complain about something you’ve seen. If you have a problem with something you have seen or experienced on an online service, reporting directly to the service should be your first step.
If you have done that and remain concerned, you can tell Ofcom.
We cannot respond to or investigate individual complaints
While we can’t respond to your complaint, it will help us to assess whether regulated services are doing enough to protect their users – and if we should take any action.
You can complain to us about regulated online services. Regulated online services include:
- user-to-user services (that is, sites and apps that host user-generated content, like social media);
- search engines;
- services with pornographic content; and
- video-sharing platforms.
Streaming and catch-up services are bound by different rules
Although on-demand and streaming services are online, we regulate them under different rules. You can complain to us about something you’ve seen on BBC iPlayer or another on-demand service.