The regulator is being led on an interim basis by its competition director Jonathan Oxley.We rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future. The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Ofcom has selected Melanie Dawes, a senior UK civil servant, to be its new chief executive. "Fines need to be part of the regime. LinkedIn. Share this with LinkedIn; ... Chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes set out the powers Ofcom would use if, as expected, it is appointed as regulator. Transparency at the moment is just not good enough," she said.Dame Dawes, who was appointed to her post three weeks before the UK went into lockdown, said that the pandemic had thrown up three major challenges for the regulator:She said that networks had "largely" performed well overall.And she added that public broadcasters had done "a good job" in keeping the nation entertained, informed and educated during lockdown.She also revealed that Ofcom research suggested that 12- to 15-year-olds used the BBC as their "first source" for news.Dame Dawes was appointed to the Ofcom role in February. VideoGrowing up in the world's largest refugee camp. ... Dame Dawes … Following the Conservatives’ decisive victory Downing Street demanded a renewed search.Three industry sources who have been approached at various stages of the Ofcom recruitment process, which began last June when Dame Sharon announced her departureThey cited the slow decision making in Whitehall, fears the role could become politicised and low pay compared with the private sector.A government source said: “It is certainly correct to say the appointment process is ongoing.”Ofcom confirmed it was still searching for a chief executive and declined to comment further. Ofcom has reportedly chosen Melanie Dawes as the successor to chief executive Sharon White. The Ofcom board, led by former Treasury mandarin Lord Burns, had hoped to appoint Dame Melanie Dawes, a permanent secretary in the Ministry of Housing and the most senior woman in … The Ofcom Board has announced the appointment of Dame Melanie Dawes as Chief Executive. The appointment of Melanie Dawes by the Board of Ofcom has been approved by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. According to The Guardian, the panel tasked with finding White's successor is ready to appoint Dawes. As from early March 2020, Melanie Dawes will be the new Chief Executive of Ofcom, succeeding Sharon White and Jonathan Oxley (the current interim Chief Executive). Find out more
Dawes has been Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government since … Ofcom | 26,911 pengikut di LinkedIn | Making communications work for everyone | Ofcom is the UK's communications regulator. We make sure people get the best from their home phone and mobile services, as well as keeping an eye on TV, radio and on-demand content. You need to be a subscriber to join the conversation. Read our community guidelines in full The 53-year-old was the most senior woman in the civil service as permanent secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. These are extremely large companies with significant financial muscle," she told MPs.France recently passed a law that requires social media to remove hate speech and illegal content within one hour or face heavy fines.Dame Dawes acknowledged that regulating Facebook, Twitter and Facebook would be a "big challenge" but promised that if Ofcom was appointed to the role, it would "shine a light" and "hold them to account", she told MPs.She said it would require the recruitment of data analysts, and revealed "someone from Google" had already been appointed.But she acknowledged that finding the right skilled people would be a challenge, and it would be hard to persuade people to move from well-paid private sector jobs to a public sector role.The DCMS committee had previously heard from social media companies on how they were dealing with online harm, and expressed frustration at the actions they had taken to deal with misinformation around Covid-19.Dame Dawes was kinder in her assessment, borrowing an analogy from the virologists when she said that the "R number" for viral misinformation had been kept down by social media firms with a range of new measures.This included Facebook's decision to limit the amount of content that could be forwarded via WhatsApp, and Twitter's decision to limit the sharing of articles by users who had not read them.Several MPs wanted to know how Ofcom would keep children safe online, and in particular whether the regulator would monitor images of self-harm.The case of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who killed herself after viewing self-harm images on Instagram, put the issue into sharp relief and helped convinced the government that it needed to appoint a social media regulator.Dame Dawes did not rule out the possibility of legal action against social media firms, including so-called super-complaints potentially launched with the help of charities such as the NSPCC.She was also asked whether the watchdog would look at limiting the amount of time children were online, but said it would be difficult to provide a definitive figure on how much time was too much.She also refused to be drawn on the issue of foreign interference on social networks but she did say that anonymous accounts on Twitter, which could be Russian bots, was an area that needed to be examined.