Meta challenges UK Online Safety Act fines tied to global revenue

Lo and behold: Meta does not want to pay the fines UK regulator Ofcom says are owed to it for violations of the Online Safety Act (OSA). The social media giant has filed a judicial review against Ofcom with the High Court, challenging how the regulator calculates fees and penalties under the OSA. It hopes to have the decision amended before the first invoices start arriving in September.

Ofcom’s fines are tied to “qualifying worldwide revenue,” and can go up to 10 percent of that number. According to a report from Reuters, Meta claims Ofcom’s approach is “disproportionate and unlawful, and could result in fines larger ‌than any imposed by a ⁠UK regulator.” In short, it argues that UK law should only be able to penalize it for UK revenue.

In a statement, a Meta spokesperson explains: “We believe ​fees and penalties should be based ‌on the services being regulated in the countries they’re being regulated in. This would still allow Ofcom to impose the largest fines in UK corporate history.”

Meta also takes umbrage with how fines are tallied in cases where “two or more providers owned by the same organization are found jointly ⁠liable for breaches” – presumable because it doesn’t want to be fined for noncompliance on both Facebook and Instagram, its two flagship platforms.

Individual fines are pocket change for Meta

At this point in its evolution, Meta is as much a litigatory project as much as it is a social media company. While its public position is that it intends to comply with online safety laws, its actions have included tireless efforts to quash state-level age assurance laws in the U.S., and what amounts to ignoring Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age law.

The issue will go to the courts this October. Per Reuters, the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a trade organization of which Meta is a member, may add its clout to the case, having released a statement confirming that “CCIA supports Meta’s challenge ​and intends to apply to intervene in order to assist the court in understanding the wider potential impact on the sector.” Epic Games could also join the opposition.

The issue of regulating Meta is inherently tied to wealth. As The Next Web points out in an article, “the fees themselves are not large in Meta’s terms. Ofcom has signalled the levy will fall between 0.02 percent and 0.03 percent of qualifying worldwide revenue, with a £250 million (about $340.5 million) revenue threshold for liability and a £10 million ($13.6 million) UK-revenue floor below which providers are exempt.”

“For Meta, that translates to a few tens of millions of pounds a year on a roughly $165 billion revenue base.”

The “penalty exposure” is bigger. “The Online Safety Act lets Ofcom fine in-scope services up to 10 percent of qualifying worldwide revenue, the same multiplier the GDPR uses. On Meta’s 2025 figures, the theoretical ceiling sits in the $16 billion range.” As such, “whether the calculation starts from worldwide or UK-only revenue makes the difference between a remedy that hurts and one that does not.”

Meta, owned by the world’s fifth richest man, would prefer it if UK law was structured such that it makes any penalty effectively meaningless in the larger financial scheme.

“If Ofcom prevails, the methodology stands and the UK regime joins the EU’s GDPR and DSA in calibrating penalties to global revenue. If Meta prevails, Ofcom will have to recalibrate; the implications would also extend to TikTok, X, Snap, Pinterest and the other large platforms in scope, none of which has yet joined Meta’s filing publicly but most of which are believed to share the underlying objection.”

Meta has now amassed more than €2.5 billion (about $2.9 billion) in EU fines, more than half the cumulative GDPR penalties levied across the bloc.

Meta asks court for a do-over in California case

Meta is also facing costly legal judgments in the U.S. – and asking the courts to reverse them. Reuters says the company has asked a Los Angeles judge to throw out a jury verdict finding it liable for $4.2 million in damages, in part for harming young users by “designing its platforms to ‌be addictive.”

In asking for the verdict to be overturned and for the case to be re-tried, Meta is specifically arguing that the woman who brought claims against it for causing her depression was impacted by the content she viewed, not addictive design; therefore, it is shielded from her claims.

Meta, then, would prefer it if the decision of a jury in a U.S. court didn’t count.

The California case is a clue to Meta’s obstinance. Per Reuters, the company is facing “thousands of similar lawsuits filed ​by individuals and families ​in both federal and ⁠state court, as well as lawsuits filed by school districts and states. The LA ​trial was ⁠a bellwether for the state court cases, meaning it is a test case that could help guide settlement discussions across the broader pool of lawsuits.”

For Meta, there is no one fine to rule them all: no one entity can siphon enough cash from its pockets to make any real, lasting impact. Death by a thousand fines is a different story. The company was in New Mexico this week to push back against $375 million in fines for harms arising from CSAM and addiction under product safety laws. If other states follow, the money starts to add up – especially when combined with fines in the UK and EU.

For now, the game for Meta continues to be about defending itself, deflecting accountability, ignoring compliance, and holding on to every penny as tightly as it can.

Article Topics

age verification  |  lawsuits  |  Meta  |  Ofcom  |  Online Safety Act  |  regulation  |  social media