Meta mounts legal challenge to UK’s Online Safety Act

Meta is taking the UK’s communications regulator to court, filing a judicial review in the High Court to challenge the way Ofcom calculates fees and penalties under the Online Safety Act. The company’s core argument: the formula used to determine what it owes is fundamentally unfair, sticking the biggest firms with most of the bill regardless of the law’s broader ambitions. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 7, 2026, with the substantive hearing set for October 2026. Meta won’t be fighting alone, either. The Computer and Communications Industry Association and Epic Games are expected to intervene on its side, while the 5Rights Foundation will back Ofcom. The math Meta doesn’t like At the center of the dispute is something called “qualifying worldwide revenue,” or QWR. Ofcom uses this metric to calculate both the annual fees that regulated platforms owe and the maximum fines they could face for violations. For companies with QWR exceeding £250 million, the fee obligations kick in. Fines can reach up to 10% of QWR or £18 million, whichever figure is larger. For a company of Meta’s size, that “whichever is greater” clause is doing a lot of heavy lifting in Ofcom’s favor. Meta ...