Since late January, the Appeals Centre has issued more than 150 decisions about content on Facebook and TikTok. Despite social media companies making out-of-court dispute settlement Europe’s best-kept-secret, users are successfully challenging platforms’ content decisions – with more than half of our 141 decisions related to Facebook overturning the platform’s decisions.

Users Seize Chance to Challenge Platforms’ Decisions

Since opening our doors last November, we’ve seen a real response from across the EU.


We have received over 1,500 disputes from people in the EU looking to challenge Facebook, TikTok and YouTube’s decisions. These cover content in 47 languages and come from every single EU member state.

The largest number of disputes have come from Italy, followed by France and Germany. Disputes were most likely to be about potential violations of platforms’ rules on adult nudity, followed by bullying and harassment, and restricted goods and services (which governs how users can mention products like drugs and alcohol).


To date, 76% of overall disputes have been about Facebook, while 21% have come from TikTok, and 3% from YouTube, and the number of disputes submitted grew each month from November to February.

First Decisions Show Importance of Independent Review

Since we finalised our data-sharing agreement with Meta in late January, we have issued over 140 decisions about potential violations of Facebook policies including hate speech, bullying and misinformation, applying human review to every case. 



77 out of 141 of our decisions about Facebook (55%) overturned Meta’s original decision to leave up or take down the content, clearly demonstrating the value of users challenging platforms’ decisions to independent bodies like the Appeals Centre.

In some policy areas, this overturn rate was higher. Our first decisions overturned 67% of Facebook cases related to restricted goods and services and 59% of Facebook cases about adult nudity and sexual activity.

While our decisions are non-binding, platforms must engage with dispute settlement bodies like the Appeals Centre. Meta has already started implementing our decisions, and we will release more information about this in our first transparency report which will be published by mid-year.

Last week, we made our first decisions about content on TikTok. We will soon issue our first decisions about content on YouTube.

Platforms Must Do More

Whilst the disputes submitted by users over the past weeks show a real appetite to challenge the decisions of platforms, platforms still have a long way to go to make out-of-court dispute settlement accessible to users as required by the law.

First, to independently resolve a dispute between a user and platform, we need to review the content in question. To make faster decisions – and help more users – we need platforms to share this with us quickly and seamlessly.


Second, while the Digital Services Act has created a new right for people to challenge platforms’ decisions, those platforms are making it Europe’s best-kept-secret. The law is clear that platforms must make out-of-court dispute settlement easily accessible, clear, and user-friendly. Social media platforms must have a dedicated webpage about dispute settlement bodies, mention them clearly in their internal appeals process, and reference them in the statement of reasons sent to users (including a link to the European Commission website about dispute settlement bodies at each point).” 


Take Control of Online Spaces


While the Digital Services Act has created a new right for people to challenge platforms’ decisions – rights are only meaningful if people use them. If your content is unfairly removed, or if you see harmful content which you think should be removed, do something about it. Go to appealscentre.eu, submit a dispute and take control of what you see and post online.

For media enquiries, please contact media@appealscentre.eu