EU watchdog overturns social media giants in most user appeals

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — In its first transparency report on Wednesday, Europe’s independent referee for clashes with social media giants didn’t pull punches: Platforms are not only getting decisions wrong but often stonewalling when asked to correct them.

A key rule of the European Union’s Digital Services Act, a sweeping law that makes Big Tech more accountable for how they police online content, gives users the right to challenge account or post takedowns without going to court.

Appeals Centre Europe, launched in late 2024, is the first body certified to handle those appeals. Its debut report, covering November 2024 to August 2025, shows nearly 10,000 complaints landed on its desk, more than 3,300 fell within scope and over 1,500 rulings were issued by summer’s end.

What stands out is how often the platforms got it wrong. In more than three out of four cases, reviewers sided with users. Most of the time that meant putting a post or account back online, and in some cases it meant finally removing content that clearly broke the rules.

The fights were mostly over hate speech, bullying, or nudity and sexual content. With the posts in hand, the center overturned 65% of Facebook’s calls on restricted goods, 57% on nudity and 50% on hate speech. And the mistakes cut both ways: Sometimes political satire was wrongly flagged as hate speech, while in other cases abusive content stayed online even after victims reported it.

In Poland, a photo showing how to check for testicular cancer was pulled by Facebook as nudity until reviewers said it qualified as a medical exception and should go back up with a warning screen. In Cyprus, a Facebook group discussing prescription drugs was restored when reviewers ruled that open debate on medical issues should be allowed. And in Slovakia, TikTok was told to remove racist slurs against Romani people that it had wrongly left online.

Speed has improved, but cooperation lags. Early cases sometimes dragged on for months, but by August new disputes were wrapping up in just 19 days on average. Overall the typical case took about two months.

That faster pace, though, was undercut by how rarely platforms played ball. Nearly two-thirds of user wins came simply because companies failed to provide the disputed posts. When material was handed over, users still won about half the time.

The center’s CEO Thomas Hughes said, “Since we started accepting disputes in November, we’ve seen some platforms refusing to share content with us or trying to narrow the scope of our work, leaving us with no choice but to issue default decisions in favor of the user.”

The gaps show up clearly by platform. Facebook and Instagram generated the bulk of cases, partly because Meta makes the appeal route easier to find, yet they also had some of the highest rates of unresolved cooperation. TikTok shared content occasionally but often said it could not locate posts. YouTube did not provide original content during the period, which meant reviewers had to rely on links from users. Pinterest joined in September 2025 and isn’t yet in the data, though it has flagged appeal rights from the start.

A YouTube spokesperson explained the position, telling Courthouse News, “ACE has not put in place the privacy safeguards necessary for us to share the user data they need to resolve disputes about content moderation decisions,” adding that YouTube would not provide such data “without a data sharing agreement in place that respects user privacy and complies with GDPR.”

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation lays out how to handle personal data.

The company also pointed to its own system for handling complaints.

“YouTube creators continue to be able to challenge video removals through our appeals system — an important part of how we empower the YouTube community and provide a platform for free expression,” the spokesperson said.

The other platforms mentioned in the report did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the findings.

The center’s rulings don’t carry legal force, but platforms often follow them anyway. By August, Meta had implemented about 100 reversals and TikTok roughly half, a sign that the system works in part but still leaves enforcement in the hands of companies.

Hughes said the center’s next steps will broaden its reach.

“In late 2025 and moving into 2026, we will add new policy areas and enforcement types, such as scams, fraud, ads and marketplaces, as well as adding new social media platforms,” he said. He added that by 2026 the center aims to publish more transparency reports and expand the number of cases where users receive more detailed rights-based reasoning.

Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.