Facebook parent Meta has launched another of several legal challenges to Ofcom’s enforcement of the Online Safety Act, amid concerns around the law’s slow implementation.

The Upper Tribunal served Ofcom with papers last week for Meta’s appeal of the categorisation that subjects Meta’s WhatsApp and Instagram to additional regulatory duties, such as protecting users from fraudulent ads and increased reporting on the handling of illegal content.

The appeal argues those rules don’t apply to messaging that’s private, one-on-one, or involves small groups.

Legal challenges

Roblox and Quora are also challenging their inclusion under so-called Category 1 rules.

Meta has instigated judicial reviews against Ofcom in the High Court this year, which have hearing dates in October, alongside challenges from other tech firms.

Government officials have criticised the slew of legal challenges as a deliberate strategy to slow implementation of the Online Safety Act, which has broad public support.

Last week culture secretary Lisa Nandy criticised the “incredibly slow” implementation of the Act, while Ofcom group director for online safety Oliver Griffiths told a House of Lords committee last Tuesday that it was hampered by operating in a “highly litigious environment”.

The law began coming into effect in stages from April 2025 but is not expected to be fully in force until next year.

Meta is also challenging the use of a company’s global turnover as a basis for fines and to calculate the fees companies pay to fund enforcement, while TikTok and X are challenging the amount of internal data they’re required to provide to the regulator.

Ofcom said in a statement that it has been tasked with regulating an industry that’s been “unregulated and unaccountable for more than 20 years” and that it would “robustly defend our reasoning and decisions”.

Meta said that its challenges are designed to ensure the law is applied appropriately. TikTok said it committed significant resources to compliance and that its challenge was on a narrow issue.

Social media companies have faced similar legal challenges in the US, with Meta last month settling charges by states and agreeing to make changes that critics dismissed as superficial.