Ofcom Investigates Meta Over Instagram Instants as Big Tech Fights in Court

Instagram’s newest feature cannot be screenshotted. That detail sits near the top of Ofcom’s case page, and it explains why the regulator wants to know what Meta checked before switching it on. On Oct. 6, Ofcom (the Office of Communications, Britain’s media and online safety regulator) opened a formal investigation into whether Meta Platforms Inc. carried out the risk assessments the Online Safety Act 2023 requires before launching Instants, a disappearing photo and video feature inside Instagram Direct, on 13 May.

The timing was awkward for both sides. A day earlier, Meta, TikTok and X had gone to the High Court of Justice in London to fight the regulator over how much data it can demand from them.

What Ofcom’s Instagram Instants investigation covers

Under sections 9(4) and 11(4) of the Act, a platform must redo its illegal content and children’s risk assessments before making a significant change to a service’s design or operation. Ofcom says it will establish whether Meta did that for Instants, where users add a caption and the photo or video is broadcast automatically, then vanishes once viewed.

“You wouldn’t launch a new car without testing it properly, and it’s the same for online services.” George Lusty, Ofcom Director of Enforcement

Lusty also said, in Ofcom’s announcement, that “safety by design must be built in, not bolted on”. The regulator stresses that opening a case does not mean it has reached any conclusion. If it does find a breach, it can order fixes and fine up to £18m (about US$24m) or 10 per cent of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater. For Meta, the second number is the one that matters.

Meta disputes the premise. A spokesperson said the company “takes its regulatory obligations under the Online Safety Act seriously” and said it ran a risk analysis and briefed Ofcom on the feature several times before launch, according to the Free Speech Union, a campaign group that opposes the Act. The group describes this as the first investigation into Meta under the law.

Meta, TikTok and X in the High Court over Ofcom data demands

The court fight is about paperwork, which is exactly why it matters. In February, Ofcom sent the three companies legally binding information notices asking for content moderation metrics, including how many posts they removed or restricted and how many users saw harmful material, Reuters reported on Oct. 5.

The companies’ filings are blunt. A witness statement for X called it “the most burdensome information request X has received from any regulator in any jurisdiction.” Meta said Ofcom wanted “wide-ranging and granular information” about seven of its services without a clearly defined regulatory purpose. TikTok argued the regulator had bypassed an alternative monitoring regime that comes with its own safeguards.

Ofcom’s answer is that it needs the numbers to judge whether the regime works, and that it narrowed the requests before they took effect. “Parliament has charged us with the job of regulating an industry that has been unregulated and unaccountable,” a spokesperson told Reuters. The hearing was listed for 5 to 7 October, MediaNama reported; no judgment had been reported by Oct. 8.

Meta’s fees and fines challenge comes next

The calendar is getting crowded. Meta’s separate challenge to how Ofcom calculates fees and penalties is due to be heard on 13 and 14 October, per MediaNama. Its core complaint, first raised in May, is that fining US companies on global revenue rather than the size of their UK operations is unfair. In September it also appealed Ofcom’s decision to place Instagram and WhatsApp in the Act’s strictest tier, Category 1, which brings extra transparency, user-control and fraud-advertising duties.

Ofcom’s track record so far is small-bore. By March 2026 it had issued 16 fines against six companies totalling nearly £4m (about US$5.4m), including £20,000 (about US$27,000) penalties on 4chan and the image host Im.ge for ignoring information requests. None of those firms had Meta’s legal budget. (We covered the parallel fight over who checks users’ ages in our piece on Apple, Google and Meta’s age verification standoff.)

What it means for UK Instagram users

Nothing changes in the app yet. Instants stays live while Ofcom gathers evidence, and the next step, if any, is a provisional decision that Meta can contest in full. Parents who want to limit disappearing content can review Instagram’s messaging and teen supervision settings now rather than wait for the regulator.

Our read: the Instants case is a test of process rather than harm. Ofcom is not alleging that the feature hurt anyone. It is asking whether Meta did its homework first, and it is asking that question in the same week Meta’s lawyers are arguing the homework Ofcom sets is too heavy. Ofcom says it will post updates on the case page as the investigation progresses. It gives no date.