The Online Safety Act’s grand experiment has reached the less glamorous business of subpoenas, appeals, and legal fees.
CAM WAKEFIELD
The UK’s Online Safety Act, and the way it is being implemented, is one of the most damaging online censorship laws attempted in a Western democracy.
The law is now producing its first crop of court cases, and they are many.
Meta, Roblox, Quora, TikTok, and X are either suing, appealing, or judicially reviewing various aspects of the regime put in place by the country’s communications regulator, Ofcom.
Meta, along with Roblox and Quora are unhappy about being designated as “Category 1” services, the tier that carries the most stringent duties under the Act. Meta is contesting this status for Instagram and WhatsApp, arguing that these are private one-to-one and small group messaging services that should not be covered by the duties that come with this category.
TikTok and X are also challenging Ofcom, but not their Category 1 status – rather, they, along with Meta, are fighting the information demands the regulator has served them with. Meta said that Ofcom’s initial request was for an additional 10,000 pieces of information – “more information than Meta has been asked to provide by any other regulator in the world.”
Ofcom, on the other hand, says that it risks being “clobbered” by deep-pocketed companies and individuals. Group Director for Online Safety Oliver Griffiths shared this with the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee on September 15, as the regulator is trying to explain why it is not moving fast enough to implement the act.
The UK’s Online Censorship Law Has Entered Its Litigation Era
“We are operating in a highly litigious environment,” he said. “We currently have judicial reviews being run against us on our fees regime, twice, by Meta. We have a raft of services that are bringing judicial reviews against us for trying to collect data so that we can monitor and evaluate what is happening with the regime. We have four services that are appealing to the Upper Tribunal in terms of our categorisation register.”
But he also said that Ofcom has to tread carefully: “We have all come to work to make this happen, but, if we run unnecessary risks, we are going to get absolutely clobbered legally by deep-pocketed individuals and firms.”
Category 1 status is not really a badge of honor. It’s more of a workload. And it is not only a matter of being censored and forced to implement age verification, but also to report to Ofcom, which wants to know about the “moderation” taking place on these platforms.
The Category 1 “special duties” are: identity verification of users, expanded user controls, transparency reporting, complaints procedures, protections for journalistic and democratic content, and measures on fraudulent advertising.
As ever, the question is, who is the law for? The platforms are not really fighting it, they are just trying to make it more palatable to their bottom line. “Like many others in the industry, including TikTok, Roblox, X and Quora, we are challenging specific aspects of implementation. These are not challenges to the law itself, but how Ofcom has interpreted it,” a Meta spokesperson said.
“This is a normal feature of any new regulatory regime being bedded in and ensures questions of process, scope and implementation get settled so the law is applied proportionately, accurately and consistently.” Meta is trying to explain its actions, without ever mentioning the words “free speech” or “user rights.”
The only thing that is clear is that the law is being shaped by those with the deepest pockets, while those most affected by it – regular users – have no seat at the table.
Meanwhile, in the UK parliament, the mood seems to be that the courts are the problem, not the law. Former junior minister for tech and the digital economy in the last Conservative government, Damian Collins, is now accusing Meta of “lawfare” – using the courts to delay implementation of the Online Safety Act.
Collins wants the government to give more money to Ofcom. And he has no doubt that the legislation is sound, because, “the legislation is what the British people clearly want.”
The current Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, has revealed that the law will be “updated regularly.”
“I think we’re going to have to start getting used to the idea, actually, that government is going to be far quicker, far more interventionist, and I think I’m going to have to see the law updated regularly because tech is changing so fast that we’ve got to be able to respond,” she said last week on the Sky News Electoral Dysfunction podcast.
Meta is also separately challenging the way Online Safety fees are calculated, and arguing that the fees should not be pegged to global revenue. A substantive hearing in this case is set for October 13 and 14, 2026.
And then there’s the case of 4chan and Kiwi Farms, who challenged Ofcom in a US court, but on September 15, 2026, that case was dismissed because US courts lack jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which gives foreign governments and their agencies immunity from most lawsuits in American courts.
But Ofcom is on the case. It is consulting on a draft Code of Practice and guidance for Category 1 services, and that consultation closes on October 2. The regulator expects the duties for these services to be fully in force around the middle of 2027.
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(UKR)
