Appeals Centre Europe received 24,000 complaints between April 2025 and March 2026 from EU citizens challenging social media moderation decisions. France led with 4,400 complaints, followed by Belgium and Italy, while Spain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Austria submitted fewer. The main complaint reasons included hate speech and hateful behaviors, account suspensions or restrictions, adult nudity and sexual activity, misinformation, and fraud and scams. Facebook attracted the most complaints in France, Denmark, and Sweden, while Instagram attracted the most in Austria, Germany, and Spain. The body issued decisions on more than 10,000 disputes and disagreed with platforms in 59% of reviewed cases, including cases involving racist comments, antisemitic videos, misinformation-related AI videos, and incorrect removals under nudity policies. The EU Digital Services Act enables no-cost out-of-court dispute settlement for moderation and safety decisions.
"Data published by Appeals Centre Europe , an independent organisation created to resolve disputes on social media platforms moderation policies, said it received 24,000 complaints between April 2025 and March 2026. The largest number was received from France (4,400), followed by Belgium and Italy. This compares with 3,000 received from Spain, 1,800 from Germany, 427 from Sweden, 350 from Denmark, and 235 from Austria."
"The main reasons were hate speech and hateful behaviours, account suspensions or restrictions, adult nudity and sexual activity, misinformation, and fraud and scams. In France, Denmark and Sweden, the biggest number of complaints was related to Facebook, while in Austria, Germany and Spain more complaints were directed against Instagram."
"Appeals Centre Europe said it issued decisions on more than 10,000 disputes and disagreed with the platforms' stance in 59 percent of cases for which they were able to review the content. Examples included racist comments left on Instagram following a Champions League match, antisemitic videos posted on YouTube, an AI-generated video about the Russia-Ukraine war breaking TikTok's rules on misinformation, and the wrong removal by Facebook of pictures by a photographer based on nudity policies."
"The EU Digital Services Act, entered into force in 2022, sets rules for content moderation, user safety and transparency of online platforms. Under the regulation, users and organisations can challenge decisions on social media account suspensions, deleted posts, and content violations bringing cases at no cost to out-of-court dispute settlement bodies. Appeals Centre Europe, a certified body to carry out this task, currently monitors Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Threads, TikTok and YouTube."
Read at The Local France
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