New Irish registered body to handle disputes between EU users and Facebook, TikTok and YouTube

Appeals Centre Europe has been certified as an Out-of-Court Dispute Settlement Body under the EU Digital Services Act

The body is supported by Meta Platforms' Oversight Board Trust, with former director of the Oversight Board, Thomas Hughes, taking on the new role as inaugural CEO of the Appeals Centre.

Ireland's media regulator Coimisiún na Meán has published details on the independent body it has certified to resolve appeals against policy violation decisions of social media companies in the European Union including Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. 

Appeals Centre Europe (ACE) has been certified as an Out-of-Court Dispute Settlement (ODS) Body under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA). 

An ODS body can help online users resolve disputes relating to decisions of online platforms, including complaints that have not been resolved using the internal complaint-handling system of an online platform. The decisions of ODS bodies are not binding.

ACE, which is a registered company in Ireland, has been granted certification for five years, from September 2024 to September 2029. The area of expertise for which the certification is granted is the application and enforcement of the terms and conditions of online platforms.

The company will initially decide cases relating to Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, and will include more social media platforms over time. It will apply a human review to every case within 90 days, and decide whether platforms' decisions are consistent with their content policies, it said in a statement.

Until now, individuals and organisations using social media have had limited options to challenge the content decisions of social media companies without going to court.

The body is supported by Meta Platforms' Oversight Board Trust, with the former director of the Oversight Board, Thomas Hughes, taking on the new role as inaugural CEO of the Appeals Centre.

"We want users to have the choice to raise a dispute to a body that is independent from governments and companies, and focused on ensuring platforms' content policies are fairly and impartially applied," Hughes said.

Dublin-based Appeals Centre, which has a one-time grant from the Oversight Board Trust, will be funded through fees charged to social media companies for each case. Users who raise a dispute will pay a nominal fee, which will be refunded if the decision is in their favour.

However, under the rules of DSA, providers of online platforms may refuse to engage with such dispute settlement body and it shall not have the power to impose a binding settlement of the dispute on the parties.

To be certified as an ODS Body, an applicant must satisfy several conditions, including impartiality and independence, expertise regarding areas of illegal content, remuneration in a way that is not linked to the outcome of the procedure, accessibility, swift and efficient dispute settlements, and clear and fair rules which are easily and publicly accessible. 

"We welcome the certification of new independent bodies by the Irish regulator," said Thomas Regnier, a spokesman for the European Commission. "We will support the effective and uniform development of this system across the whole EU to give all EU users stronger rights online."

The Appeals Centre will have a board of seven non-executive directors and will start receiving disputes from users before the end of the year.

Additional reporting from Reuters.