Facebook, YouTube and TikTok users in Europe get forum to challenge social media content decisions

[October 08, 2024]  By KELVIN CHAN

LONDON (AP) — Social media users in the European Union will soon have a new forum to challenge decisions by platforms to remove posts and videos for breaking their rules or leave up others that may violate them.

An “out of court dispute settlement body” named the Appeals Center Europe said Tuesday it has been certified by Irish regulators to act as a referee on content moderation disputes across the 27-nation EU, starting with cases involving Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.

The center is similar to Meta’s Oversight Board, a quasi-independent body set up in 2020 that acts like a supreme court for thorny decisions about content moderation issues on Facebook, Instagram and Threads submitted by users around the world.

Under the EU's digital rulebook known as the Digital Services Act, or DSA, tech companies and social media platforms are required to work with dispute settlement bodies and comply with any decisions they make. EU officials in Brussels wanted to give EU citizens a way to challenge any decisions made by Big Tech companies as they sought to balance the right to free speech against the goal of curbing online risks.

The center will hear appeals from users or groups located in the EU about “everything from violence and incitement to hate speech to bullying and harassment,” CEO Thomas Hughes said.

“It could be everything from a case that relates to a head of state all the way through to a neighborly dispute,” Hughes said.

The Digital Services Act is a sweeping set of regulations that requires tech and social media companies operating in Europe to clean up their platforms under threat of hefty fines.

The Appeals Center, based in Dublin, where many Silicon Valley companies have their European headquarters, will start hearing cases from users before the end of the year. It's initially dealing with Facebook, YouTube and TikTok users because it wanted to start with the biggest platforms, with plans to add others later.

Unlike the Oversight Board, which can cherry pick the biggest and most important cases, the center will have to rule on every case it gets. And decisions won’t be publicly available, unlike Oversight Board judgments that are posted online.

The Oversight Board both issues binding decisions on individual cases, such as ruling in September on three separate posts with the controversial Palestinian rallying cry “ from the river to the sea," and also weighs in on wider policy issues with non-binding recommendations, such as guidance in July on updating Meta's policies on non-consensual deepfakes after reviewing a case involving deepfake intimate images of two women.

The Appeals Center’s decisions, in contrast, aren't binding and will be limited to whether content such as a post, photo or video violates each platform’s rules.

Hughes said the center will hire staff from across the EU to handle what he said could be up to tens of thousands of cases each year. The staff will have expertise in specific regions, languages and policy areas.

Beyond the individual decisions on cases, data on the disputes will help regulators and researchers map out any “systemic risks” to social media users.

The Real Facebook Oversight Board, a group of civil rights leaders and tech experts that has been critical of Meta and its oversight panel, gave a cautious welcome to the new centre.

“We don’t know a lot about the appeals center and how it will work, but moderation enforcement under the DSA has promise that other approaches do not," said spokesman Ben Wyskida. While the DSA “hasn't been perfect ... it is still far and away superior to anything in the United States.”

Meta's Oversight Board is providing 15 million euros ($16.5 million) in startup funding, said Hughes, who was previously the Oversight Board's director. He added that the two bodies will operate separately but will “point in the same direction in terms of platform accountability and transparency, user rights” and applying a human rights framework to online speech.

The Appeals Center will fund its ongoing operations by charging tech companies 95 euros for every case it hears, as well as a 5 euro fee from users who raise disputes. This "nominal" fee is intended to stop people from “gaming or abusing” the system and will be refunded if a user wins, Hughes said.

Even though decisions aren't binding, users will still get their money back if the center rules in favor of their disputes, regardless of whether or not the platform takes any action.

There's a 90-day deadline for decisions, but in most cases they will be made much more quickly, he said.

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Associated Press writer Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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