New Ofcom boss Ian Cheshire’s in-tray is full but one issue will dominate

Implementation of the Online Safety Act has just got going, leaving ex-chair of Channel 4 with a huge task on his hands Ian Cheshire’s Ofcom in-tray is big. It is available online under the regulator’s plan for 2026-27 and covers an array of industries: telecoms, broadband, the postal service, media and the online world. It is the latter that is going to dominate his tenure as chair. Ofcom oversees the Online Safety Act, the legislation that regulates social media in the UK. Much is expected of the act from internet safety campaigners, and a bit less from freedom of speech advocates, which leaves Cheshire in a difficult place. “When Ofcom was formed just over 20 years ago, the communications world was a very different place,” the plan says, with some understatement. “Two-thirds of the UK had no internet. There were no iPhones or smart speakers, no iPlayer, YouTube or TikTok. 4G was still a decade away, and Britons sent three times more letters than they do today.” Influential figures in online safety such as Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, the teenager who took her own life after viewing content online, and the peer Beeban Kidron are adamant that the act needs