A minister asked for an algorithm change, and the Online Safety Act has no line for it

The two verbs in Pollard's sentence sit on different legal footings ^[2]. Removal is the one Downing Street pointed at, saying the culture secretary has been clear that footage should come down "in line with their legal obligations", with Ofcom holding the government's full backing to act against platforms that fail in their duties ^[8]. Ranking is the one he added, and the Act as described by the BBC does not put ranking anywhere: video featuring illegal activity is not necessarily illegal itself, and it falls to the platform to decide whether flagged content is unlawful and act accordingly ^[9]. The carve-outs are harder than vague. Footage of a person being killed is not automatically illegal unless a terrorist group is sharing it, or children can reach it ^[10]. A platform can therefore satisfy the removal duty in full and go on recommending the genre.

That is close to what TikTok's own answer describes, without intending to. The company says its policies prohibit content that could cause significant physical harm, including dangerous driving, and that between January and March 2026 it removed 99.8% of content taken down under those policies proactively ^[12]. The denominator there is removals, not uploads or impressions, so the number reports on its own moderation queue rather than on what was served to anyone. The residual works out at one removal in every five hundred that waited for someone else to flag it ^[19]. TikTok also accepts that a takedown is not a finding of illegality, and may reflect nothing more than its own terms and conditions ^[13].

The material BBC Verify examined shows why "not celebrated" is a ranking question rather than a legal one. A 94-second clip posted to the account in March 2025 showed a car being driven across footpaths and parkland in Ormesby, Middlesbrough, with Saddington in a rear seat ^[14]. Another, since deleted, appears to show a joyride with the speedometer reading 100mph, and later a different car set on fire ^[15]. Taken one at a time, each is an upload awaiting a judgement call. Taken together they are a format, and formats are what a recommender is for. Pollard's other line was the operative one: the companies know exactly what content is on their sites, and they know how their algorithms work ^[6].

Meta and X were contacted for comment and no response from either appears in the BBC's report ^[16]. That gap matters more than it looks, because TikTok at least has a figure to put on the table, even though the figure answers a question nobody in government asked.