Quora just lost the Online Safety Act's toughest duties, the first change to Ofcom's platform register since launch in June. Ofcom promises public reasoning for every decision; Quora got one line, unexplained.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. Ofcom published its register of categorised services under the Online Safety Act on 30 June 2026, listing the platforms that carry the Act's heaviest duties [1]. The register's own change log shows exactly one update since launch: on 28 September 2026, Ofcom removed Quora from Category 1 and placed it in Category 2B, a materially lighter duty tier, "based on our reassessment under section 96(7) of the Act" [1]. Section 96(7) is the mechanism a service provider uses to ask Ofcom to reassess it [2]. Ofcom's own FAQ, published 10 July 2026, promises published decisions for every categorised service, "setting out our full assessment" once a confidentiality process with the provider is complete [3]. For Quora's move, the public record is one sentence. One documented mistake: four stars.
The register itself is a short, functional document: a list of platform names against the duty tier each one sits in, published once, updated as circumstances change. Ofcom brought it into existence on 30 June 2026 after a lengthy assessment process, provisional decisions issued to providers in March, representations considered, final decisions issued before publication [1]. Ten platforms, among them Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok and YouTube, went into Category 1, the tier that carries the Act's most demanding obligations. Quora, the question-and-answer discussion forum, went in alongside them.
The only change the register has recorded
Three months later, the register's "Register and list updates" section carries its first and so far only entry, dated 28 September 2026: "Based on our reassessment under section 96(7) of the Act, we have decided to remove Quora from the part of the register for Category 1 services and instead have added Quora to the part of the register for Category 2B services. We have updated the service description for Pinterest" [1]. The Pinterest line is a cosmetic wording fix; the Quora line is a change of legal duty tier for a global platform, and it is the entire public explanation.
The register itself confirms the change took effect. The current register PDF, dated 28 September 2026, lists Quora under Category 2B, "Regulated user-to-user service, Discussion forum", alongside services such as Discord, eBay and Mumsnet; the Category 1 table, which still carries Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok and the rest, no longer carries Quora [4].
What section 96(7) actually says
Ofcom's own citation points to the mechanism, and the mechanism is specific. Section 96(6) of the Online Safety Act gives "a provider of a Part 3 service included in the register" the right to "at any time request OFCOM to remove entries relating to that service from the register". Section 96(7) then sets out what happens next: "If OFCOM are satisfied, on the basis of evidence submitted by a provider with such a request, that since the registration day there has been a change to the service or to regulations... which appears likely to be relevant, OFCOM must assess the service, and notify the provider of OFCOM's decision" [2]. Ofcom's own FAQ describes the same route in plainer terms: "At any point, providers of services on the register are able to provide Ofcom with evidence that their categorised service(s) no longer meets the relevant threshold conditions... whether the evidence supports a service meeting the threshold conditions for a different category" [3].
In other words, the citation Ofcom chose is not a routine periodic review clause. It is the provision for when a service provider itself submits evidence and asks to be moved. Quora's citation of section 96(7), rather than the general re-review power in section 96(4), reads as an acknowledgement that this downgrade began with a request, not an Ofcom-initiated audit.
What Ofcom promised to publish
Ofcom's FAQ document is explicit about what the public should expect to see. Asked "Will you be publishing the individual decisions for each service?", Ofcom's answer reads in full: "We plan to publish our final decisions for each categorised service in the coming months. We will be carrying out a confidentiality process with service providers and will publish our decisions once this has been completed" [3]. The same document describes what a "final decision" contains: not just an outcome, but something that "set out our full assessment of their services against the categorisation threshold conditions" [3].
Quora's reassessment happened after that promise was published, not before it. The FAQ is dated 10 July 2026; the Quora change is dated 28 September 2026, eleven weeks later. No decision document for Quora is linked from the register page, the FAQ, or the Categorisation Impact Assessment Statement of Reasons, a document that explains Ofcom's general approach to categorisation but predates the Quora change by three months and does not mention Quora anywhere in its text [5]. The gap between Category 1 and Category 2B is not cosmetic. Category 1 is the tier Ofcom's own threshold conditions reserve for services with tens of millions of UK users and content-sharing functionality; Category 2B's threshold is a UK user count less than a tenth the size, with a narrower functionality test built around private messaging [1]. Which of those conditions Quora stopped meeting, and what evidence it submitted to show it, is not stated anywhere Ofcom has published.
Credit where due
Ofcom did not bury the change. It sits in a clearly labelled "Register and list updates" section on the register's own page, dated, and the underlying register PDF was republished the same day, which is what section 96(10) requires: "OFCOM must re-publish the register each time a change is made to it" [2]. Nothing here is hidden. The gap is between what Ofcom said it would publish about the reasoning behind a decision, and what it actually published.
The claims, tested
| The document's own words | What the record shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Ofcom's FAQ (10 July 2026): "We plan to publish our final decisions for each categorised service... which set out our full assessment of their services against the categorisation threshold conditions" [3] | The register's sole update since launch, Quora's move from Category 1 to Category 2B on 28 September 2026, is recorded as one sentence citing section 96(7), with no linked decision, no evidence summary, and no stated threshold finding [1] | The published decision Ofcom promised for this service has not appeared |
| Section 96(7): a provider-requested reassessment, triggered by "evidence submitted by a provider", that Ofcom "must assess" and on which it must "notify the provider" [2] | Ofcom's register entry cites section 96(7) specifically, not the general re-review power in section 96(4), for a change affecting a platform with a global reach of hundreds of millions of users [1] | The mechanism cited is provider-initiated; the public has no visibility into what Quora submitted or what Ofcom found |
Verdict
Four stars, one documented mistake. Ofcom's register of categorised services has changed exactly once since it was published in June, and that change took a major platform out of the Online Safety Act's toughest duty tier. Ofcom's own FAQ promises a published decision, with full reasoning, for every service on the register. Eleven weeks after making that promise, Ofcom delivered a single sentence for Quora, citing the subsection a provider uses to request its own downgrade, and nothing else.
The star score counts one documented mistake: Ofcom's FAQs: Categorisation (10 July 2026) promises "we plan to publish our final decisions for each categorised service in the coming months", but the register's only change since its 30 June 2026 publication, Quora's move from Category 1 to Category 2B on 28 September 2026, was recorded as a single unexplained sentence, with no linked decision document, evidence summary or threshold finding found anywhere on Ofcom's site. One fall in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding about the conduct of any named individual; it describes a regulatory publication gap, not any person's performance. All sources below were fetched directly on 13 October 2026 and returned HTTP 200; the register and FAQ PDFs were downloaded and full-text searched directly.
Sources
- Register of categorised services and list of emerging Category 1 services, Ofcom, published 30 June 2026, last updated 28 September 2026
- Online Safety Act 2023, section 96, legislation.gov.uk, in force 10 January 2024
- FAQs: Categorisation (PDF), Ofcom, July 2026
- Register of categorised services (PDF), Ofcom, 28 September 2026
- Categorisation Impact Assessment Statement of Reasons (PDF), Ofcom, 30 June 2026