Ofcom previously called for stronger action on online safety for children, and now the regulator has insisted the two platform's content feeds fall short of its expectations.

In its report, Ofcom said: "Notably, TikTok and YouTube failed to commit to any significant changes to reduce harmful content being served to children, maintaining their feeds are already safe for children.

"Our wealth of evidence, published today, suggests they are still not safe enough."

Other findings included revealing Meta, Snap and Roblox have all agreed to stronger anti-grooming measures.

Snapchat's owner Snap has agreed to prevent adult stranger from contacting children by default, as well as stop encouraging children to add people they don't already know, and to introduce "highly affective" age checks this summer.

Meta is set to hide teens' Instagram connection lists as a default setting, plus working on AI tools which can detect likely sexualised conversations in direct messages.

Meanwhile, Roblox will allow parents to totally switch off its direct chat for under-16s.

In response, both TikTok and YouTube have pointed to safety measures they already have in place on their apps.

TikTok, who found Ofcom's ruling "very disappointed", noted its safety features, including preventing direct messaging for under-16s.

For YouTube, who noted its work with child safety experts on "industry-leading, age-appropriate" experiences for children, the platform has a short-form video timer to allow parents to set time limits on the Shorts feed.

Appearing on BBC's Today programme on Thursday (21.05.26), Ofcom chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes warned that platforms not complying with its rules could face "the toughest enforcement action".

She added: "We will absolutely move into a formal investigation if we need to."