Meta, TikTok and X are fighting Ofcom in court this week over how much data it can demand from them under the UK’s Online Safety Act, one of the first court cases to test the 2023 law. Ofcom’s information notices, sent in February, asked for moderation figures such as how many posts each platform took down or limited and how many users saw harmful content. X said in a witness statement that no regulator anywhere had ever asked it for more, while Meta argued in its filings that Ofcom wants detailed data on seven of its services with no clear regulatory purpose, and TikTok said Ofcom went around a separate monitoring regime that comes with its own safeguards. Ofcom said it needs the data to judge whether the law is working, and that it had already narrowed the request.
