UK watchdog opens first Online Safety Act probe into Meta

By Paul Sandle

LONDON, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Britain's communications regulator opened its first formal investigation into Meta under the Online Safety Act on Tuesday, questioning whether it properly assessed risks posed by its Instagram Instants feature before launching it in May.

Instants allows content shared by users on Instagram to disappear after being viewed.

Ofcom said its investigation would establish whether Meta carried out a "suitable and sufficient" assessment of the risks of illegal content on the feature and any risks posed to children before its launch.

George Lusty, director of enforcement at Ofcom, said: "Our online safety laws are clear — significant changes to platforms must be risk assessed before they're launched."

Safety by design had to be built in and not bolted on, he said. "Today's investigation shows we'll take action where we have concerns that providers are failing to comply," he said.

Meta said it took its regulatory obligations under the Online Safety Act seriously.

"We conducted a risk analysis and briefed Ofcom about this feature on a number of occasions before launching it," a spokesperson said.

"Instants has in-built protections, including blocking screenshots, reshares and forwarding, no public feed, and Teen Account protections on automatically."

"We will of course co-operate with Ofcom during this investigation," the spokesperson said.

Ofcom's first investigation under the Online Safety Act was into an online suicide discussion forum last year, followed by probes into pornography sites, file-sharing services used to distribute child sexual abuse material, and platforms such as 4chan.

Britain's online safety regime sets obligations for social media platforms, search engines and adult content providers to tackle illegal content and to protect children's safety.

Ofcom requires companies to conduct risk assessments and implement safety measures, such as age verification.

If a company fails to comply, Ofcom can impose fines of up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater.

Meta has launched legal challenges against Ofcom over its implementation of the act, including the scale and scope of information it has to provide to the regulator and the level of fees Ofcom charges.

In January, Ofcom launched an investigation into Meta over the provision of information about its WhatsApp Business product under a separate Communications Act.

(Reporting by Raechel Thankam Job in Bengaluru and Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala, Sarah Young and Tomasz Janowski)