Online Safety Act 2023

79 “Provider pornographic content” and “regulated provider pornographic content”

(1) This section applies for the purposes of this Part.

(2) “Provider pornographic content”, in relation to an internet service, means pornographic content that is published or displayed on the service by the provider of the service or by a person acting on behalf of the provider, including pornographic content published or displayed on the service by means of—

(a) software or an automated tool or algorithm applied by the provider or by a person acting on behalf of the provider, or

(b) an automated tool or algorithm made available on the service by the provider or by a person acting on behalf of the provider.

(3) “Regulated provider pornographic content”, in relation to an internet service, means provider pornographic content other than content within subsection (4) or (5).

(4) Content is within this subsection if it—

(a) consists only of text, or

(b) consists only of text accompanied by—

(i) a GIF which is not itself pornographic content,

(ii) an emoji or other symbol, or

(iii) a combination of content mentioned in sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii).

(5) Content is within this subsection if it consists of a paid-for advertisement (see section 236).

(6) References to pornographic content that is “published or displayed” on a service—

(a) include, in particular—

(i) references to pornographic content that is only visible or audible to users as a result of interacting with content that is blurred, distorted or obscured (for example, by clicking on such content), but only where the pornographic content is present on the service,

(ii) references to pornographic content that is embedded on the service, and

(iii) references to pornographic content that is generated on the service by means of an automated tool or algorithm in response to a prompt by a user and is only visible or audible to that user (no matter for how short a time);

(b) do not include references to pornographic content that appears in search results of a search service or a combined service.

(7) Pornographic content that is user-generated content in relation to an internet service is not to be regarded as provider pornographic content in relation to that service.

(8) In this section—

• “search results” has the meaning given by section 57(3);

• “user-generated content” has the meaning given by section 55 (see subsections (3) and (4) of that section).