'Appeals Centre' to referee EU social media disputes

Paris: An independent appeals panel was unveiled Tuesday to decide disputes between social media firms and their users in the European Union over content posted on their platforms.

The out-of-court dispute settlement body, dubbed Appeals Centre Europe and backed by Meta's own oversight board, will be established in Dublin under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA).

The act polices illegal content like hate speech and disinformation on the biggest online platforms, and allows for outside entities to establish mechanisms to resolve disputes.

"The body will initially decide cases relating to Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, aiming to include more social media platforms over time," the board said in a statement.

Meta's oversight board - often described as a top court for the company's content moderation decisions - is providing a one-time grant for the centre.

Thomas Hughes, former oversight board chief, will be CEO of the new body and said it should begin accepting cases by the end of the year.

He told AFP it was a "game-changing moment" and confirmed users would be able to appeal to the appeals centre for a wide range of disputes under the DSA.

This could be a decision to take down - or leave up - content a user believes is hate speech, incitement to violence or other categories deemed unacceptable.

The DSA aims to force the largest online companies to tackle illegal content or face fines of up to six percent of their global turnover.

The bloc has already used the DSA to probe Facebook and Instagram for failing to tackle election-related disinformation, and has accused X of breaching the rules with its blue-tick "verified" accounts.

Establishing a dispute resolution mechanism is part of the process to make the law fully operational.

Empowering Europeans

Meta established the oversight board in 2020 with a non-retractable trust fund of $130 million.

The panel has the power to overrule the company on content moderation decisions with CEO Mark Zuckerberg promising to abide by their rulings.

Hughes explained that the oversight board's trust had paid for the new appeals centre, but once established it would take payments from users and the companies.

Users, he said, would pay a nominal fee of five euros ($5.50), which would be refunded if they won the appeal. Companies would pay around 100 euros for each case.

"It puts into the hands of individual users the ability to be able to challenge the decisions that are taken about their own content and what other content they see online as well," he told AFP.

Last month, Margrethe Vestager, the EU's digital enforcer, explained to reporters that, at its heart, the DSA was about empowering Europeans to hold big tech to account.

"The DSA is not content moderation," she said on a visit to the United States.

"It is a system to enable you to actually know what is taken down so that you can complain about it."