London’s High Court has upheld Ofcom data powers under the Online Safety Act, dismissing a joint legal challenge brought by Meta, TikTok and X on Friday. The three platforms must now hand over extensive records on how they moderate content, including the exposure of children to harmful material.
Key points
- The High Court rejected claims by Meta, TikTok and X that Ofcom’s statutory information requests were unlawful or disproportionately burdensome.
- Platforms must provide three years of quantitative data, covering user exposure to harmful posts, content removals, report volumes and appeal outcomes.
- Judges ruled that Parliament intended Ofcom to run an ambitious regulatory scheme, and that the tech companies failed to prove the demands were irrational.
- Companies that commit serious breaches of the Online Safety Act face statutory fines of up to 10% of their annual global turnover.
The High Court judgment
Lord Justice Singh and Mrs Justice Collins Rice delivered the written judgment on Friday, refusing to quash the information notices issued by the communications regulator. The ruling represents the first major courtroom test of the enforcement powers granted to Ofcom under the Online Safety Act 2023.
The dispute stems from notices sent to the tech companies in February. Ofcom instructed the platforms to supply quantitative records detailing how they handle illicit and damaging posts, user reporting volumes, and the effectiveness of their takedown processes.
In their ruling, the judges stated that the platforms failed to provide sufficient evidence demonstrating why complying with the notices would be unreasonably onerous. They formally dismissed arguments that the regulator had acted irrationally or beyond its statutory authority.
The judges wrote that it was “clear from the legislative history of the Online Safety Act that Parliament intended Ofcom to implement a new and ambitious scheme for regulating online safety”. They accepted the regulator’s evidence regarding the public interest in establishing whether current safety systems protect British users.
What data the platforms must surrender
The court orders the three tech companies to deliver detailed metrics tracking user engagement and moderation decisions across a three-year period. The demands require the firms to segment user activity by age group, isolating material seen by minors.
The notices mandate disclosures on the total volume of accounts and posts subjected to moderation, as well as the number of users exposed to content before it was restricted or removed. Platforms must also supply data on the speed and outcomes of internal appeal mechanisms.
In addition, the companies must provide records showing the volume and resolution of complaints filed directly by users in the United Kingdom. Ofcom stated that this information is necessary to review its codes of practice and measure whether harmful material is declining across major services.
Arguments from Meta, TikTok and X
Lawyers representing the social media companies told the court earlier this month that complying with the notices would cost millions of pounds. They argued that the information requests represented an unreasonable operational burden that exceeded the regulator’s legal mandate.
Victoria Wakefield KC, representing TikTok, said the requests “represent either the largest, or one of the largest, production exercises required of them by any regulator.” Wakefield argued that the watchdog had bypassed alternative evaluation mechanisms that contain greater procedural protections.
Amy Rogers KC, appearing for X, submitted that the demand forced the company to design complex data extraction systems for information it does not track for commercial purposes. Rogers told the court that gathering the data would take months and expose the firm to legal penalties if its filings were deemed inadequate.
Christopher Knight KC, representing Meta, argued that the regulator had exceeded its legal authority by demanding wide-ranging data across seven distinct services without demonstrating proportionality. Meta is also contending with British regulators on other fronts, including a Meta CMA investigation examining publisher data terms, as well as separate disputes with Ofcom over regulatory fees and Instagram Instants.
Enforcement and next steps
Javan Herberg KC, arguing for Ofcom, told the court that the regulator needed the full records to fulfil Parliament’s objective of making the UK a safer online environment. Ofcom maintained that it had already narrowed the scope of its requests prior to formal service.
Following the ruling, an Ofcom spokesperson welcomed the decision to dismiss the applications. The regulator stated that Parliament assigned it the duty of supervising an industry that operated without formal statutory accountability for more than two decades.
Under the provisions of the Online Safety Act, platforms that fail to comply with statutory notices or commit serious compliance breaches face financial penalties reaching up to 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue. Meta, TikTok and X must now begin extracting the required moderation datasets to meet the regulator’s deadlines.
