Britain’s Online Safety Act is no longer only a statute on paper. In the week reported on 20 September 2026, Meta — parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — served notice of an appeal against Ofcom’s decision to place Instagram and WhatsApp in Category 1, the tier that triggers additional user-control, transparency, complaints, and fraudulent-advertising duties.
Meta says it is challenging Ofcom’s interpretation — not the Online Safety Act itself. That distinction matters for readers who hear “platforms sued to kill the law.”
What Category 1 means
Ofcom’s public register of categorised services lists major user-to-user platforms — including Instagram and WhatsApp — as Category 1. Category 1 services face additional duties beyond the baseline illegal-content and child-safety regimes: user empowerment tools, certain journalistic/democratic-content protections, complaints and terms transparency, freedom-of-expression and privacy assessments, and fraudulent-advertising measures. Exact duty texts live in Ofcom’s codes and the Online Safety Act schedules — not in social posts.
What Meta (and peers) are fighting
A Meta spokesperson, quoted in contemporaneous coverage, said the company — “like many others in the industry, including TikTok, Roblox, X and Quora” — is “challenging specific aspects of implementation,” not the law itself, so that “questions of process, scope and implementation get settled” and the law is applied “proportionately, accurately and consistently.” Separate Meta litigation earlier in 2026 targeted Ofcom’s methodology for calculating fees/fines by reference to global revenue. TikTok and X have contested the breadth of Ofcom information demands.
Ofcom’s own description of the climate
Around 15 September 2026, Ofcom group director for online safety Oliver Griffiths told the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee the regulator was “operating in a highly litigious environment,” including Meta actions and judicial reviews over data collection, and warned that unnecessary legal risk would see Ofcom “clobbered” by deep-pocketed firms. That is Ofcom’s characterisation of the docket climate — not a ruling on Meta’s Category 1 appeal.
Contested: Government and child-safety advocates: courts are being used to slow child-protection duties. Platforms: Category 1 duties misfit private messaging (WhatsApp) and must be scoped carefully. This piece does not invent an Upper Tribunal outcome — the appeal was newly served as of the mid-September reporting window.
Bottom line
Do not write “Meta struck down the Online Safety Act.” Do not invent fine amounts from this appeal. Track: Upper Tribunal Category 1 appeals, Ofcom fee challenges, and parallel DSA enforcement in Brussels — three related but legally distinct tracks.
