Michael Railton Email & Phone Number

Michael is a Senior Associate in Ofcom’s Online Safety Group within the Supervision and Illegal Harms Team. Michael is currently enjoying his newfound passion for Product Ownership and Project Management by capitalising on interchangeable skills he gleaned from his previous career. Michael’s current focus as the Digital Product Owner is on a bespoke Salesforce hosted multi-faceted Case Management System to assist his colleagues with the Online Safety Act regulatory duty. Michael’s first year at Ofcom saw his ‘Leader Leader’ management style, and his ability to empower and inspire other’s creativity, was recognised by his colleagues within Ofcom and International ICT partner, Coforge. Prior to joining Ofcom Michael worked for London’s Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) where he specialised in Urban Street Gangs and their manipulation of the online space, since 2016. Michael’s exposure to this space started in the communities of West London where he witnessed first-hand the devastating and fatal effect the online space can have on intensifying hyper-local disputes amongst youths. Michael’s expertise was often called upon Nationally, as an independent Expert Witness and Consultant, due to his balanced and methodical assessments of written and audio media for Hyper-Local context and Hyper-Personal information, as a possible catalyst or contributor for violence. Michael’s time in the MPS also involved investigating the online illicit drugs supply as well as the purchasing of knives and other weapons and criminal exploitation.Michael joined Ofcom to continue his passion to strive for a safer online space and to frustrate the reach of the negative impact it has on society.Michael truly believes our youth deserve better than to grow up in a society where localised petty disagreements are exacerbated by the magnification of the online ‘pile-on’, triggering shame and trauma receptors, creating an inevitable drive to acquire illicit weapons to settle the wrong-felt. Such manipulation erodes social norms to an extent where murder, serious injury and criminality are glamourised, normalised, championed and monetised and under the surface, child criminal exploitation is at the epicentre of it all.