Meta Is Suing Britain's Online Safety Regulator, and Now Ofcom Is Investigating Instagram's Vanishing Photos

Britain's communications regulator just opened its first formal Online Safety Act investigation into Meta, and the target is a feature designed to make photos vanish.

On Tuesday, Ofcom said it is investigating whether Meta carried out "a suitable and sufficient illegal content risk assessment and children's risk assessment before the launch of Instants." That is the Instagram feature, launched in May, that lets users fire off a spontaneous photo to close friends or mutual followers. Once it's viewed, it disappears. If that sounds a lot like Snapchat, it's supposed to.

Testing the car before you sell it

Under the Online Safety Act, platforms have to assess and update their risks before making significant changes to how their service works. Ofcom had already warned the largest platforms earlier this year that skipping that step could bring enforcement.

George Lusty, Ofcom's director of enforcement, put it bluntly. "Our online safety laws are clear. Significant changes to platforms must be risk assessed before they're launched," he said. "You wouldn't launch a new car without testing it properly, and it's the same for online services."

He added: "Safety by design must be built in, not bolted on, and today's investigation shows we'll take action where we have concerns that providers are failing to comply."

Meta's position is that it did the homework. "We conducted a risk analysis and briefed Ofcom about this feature on a number of occasions before launching it," the company said. It points out that Instants blocks screenshots, reshares and forwarding, has no public feed, and switches on Teen Account protections automatically. "We will of course co-operate with Ofcom during this investigation."

Nothing has been decided yet. Ofcom will gather evidence, and if it finds a likely breach it issues a provisional decision that Meta can respond to before any final ruling. The penalties on the table include an order to fix things and fines of up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater.

Already fighting in court

Here is where it gets awkward. Meta is already battling Ofcom on several fronts. It is suing the regulator in the High Court over the fees it charges tech companies. It is challenging Ofcom's decision to put WhatsApp and Instagram in a new category with extra duties, such as tackling paid-for fraud ads. And it has argued that Ofcom shouldn't be allowed to base fines on global revenue at all, the very lever that makes the 10% threat scary.

This week, Meta, TikTok and X were also in court for a judicial review, arguing they shouldn't have to hand over so much information to Ofcom. Separately, Ofcom has had an investigation running since January into whether Meta properly answered an information request about WhatsApp Business.

Until now, the law's formal probes had landed on a suicide discussion forum, porn sites, file-sharing services used to spread child sexual abuse material, and 4chan, Reuters reported. Going after a company of Meta's size is a different kind of test for the regime.

It also lands while Meta is taking hits in the US, from its settlement with states over youth safety to New Mexico's push for up to $40 billion in privacy penalties.

Disappearing images have been flagged before as particularly risky for children and teens. The Molly Rose Foundation, set up by the family of Molly Russell, a teenager who took her own life after viewing harmful content on Instagram, said it was crucial Meta was "held to account for their failures under the Online Safety Act." Whether Ofcom agrees there were failures is now the question.