What We Can Learn from the First Digital Services Act Out-of-Court Dispute Settlements?

It’s been three years since Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) came into effect, a sweeping set of rules meant to hold online platforms accountable for how they moderate content and protect users. One component of the law allows users to challenge online platform content moderation decisions through independent, certified bodies rather than judicial proceedings. Under Article 21 of the DSA, these “Out-of-Court Dispute Settlement“ bodies are intended to play a crucial role in resolving disputes over moderation decisions, whether it's about content takedowns, demonetization, account suspensions, or even decisions to leave flagged content online.

One such out-of-court dispute settlement body is called Appeals Centre Europe. It was established last year as an independent entity with a grant from the Oversight Board Trust, which administers Oversight Board, the content moderation 'supreme court' created and funded by Meta. Appeals Centre Europe has released a new transparency report, and the numbers are striking: of the 1,500 disputes the Centre has ruled on, over three-quarters of the platforms’ original decisions were overturned, either because they were incorrect, or because the platform didn’t provide the content for review at all.

Tech Policy Press associate editor Ramsha Jahangir spoke to two experts to unpack what the early wave of disputes tells us about how the system is working, and how platforms are applying their own rules:

• Thomas Hughes is the CEO of Appeals Center Europe
• Paddy Leerssen is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam and part of the DSA Observatory, which monitors the implementation of the DSA.