Part of Ofcom’s work is to carry out research in connection with our duties relating to UK video sharing platforms and media literacy and our duties under the Online Safety Act. As set out in Ofcom’s General Privacy Statement, this will involve Ofcom or our external research agencies, from time to time creating accounts on video-sharing platforms, and social media platforms through the use of “fictional personas” that enable user-to-user interaction (including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube).
This will involve, for example, signing up to a platform and going through a user journey to observe the platform’s sign-up process or creating accounts using a fictional persona, mimicking user behaviour, to understand the user experience. We anticipate this will be a useful source of information which we can bring together with other data to understand people’s experiences online.
In February/March 2023 we carried out a small-scale research pilot using accounts set up by researchers on different platforms, with the assistance of a research agency. The accounts used fictional personas based on young children (aged three – 12 years old) to help us understand what content these accounts observe on each platform and, in particular, whether they see potentially illegal and harmful content.
In December 2024/January 2025, following a short pilot, we plan to carry out research using accounts set up by researchers on different platforms, with the assistance of a research agency. The accounts will use “fictional personas’’ based on different users’ online experience, including children’s accounts, to help us understand the prevalence of certain design features and how the design of the platform interfaces and functionalities could shape user behaviour and outcomes. In some instances, running these accounts may include basic interactions (such as following/friending) with other accounts on the platform where this is necessary. Our intention is to keep interactions with other platform users to a minimum. In particular, not interacting with any accounts of children, private adult accounts or adult accounts with less than 1000 followers/connections.
Depending on the outcome of this research, we may carry out further research of a similar nature in future too. When such research projects are conducted, we will provide transparency notices on our website to inform the public.