The body, backed by Meta Platforms’ Oversight Board Trust and certified by Ireland’s media regulator, will act as an extrajudicial dispute resolution body under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA).
Until now, people and organizations using social media have had limited options to challenge social media companies’ content decisions without going to court.
The European Appeals Center will begin operating before the end of the year. It will initially decide cases involving Facebook, ByteDance’s TikTok and Alphabet’s YouTube and will eventually include more social media platforms.
“We want users to have the option to raise a dispute with a body that is independent of governments and companies, and that focuses on ensuring that platforms’ content policies are applied fairly and impartially,” Thomas said. Hughes, inaugural executive director of the Appeals Center and a former executive director of free speech rights group Article 19.
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With a team of experts, the new body will review each case within 90 days and decide whether the platforms’ decisions are consistent with their content policies, it said in a statement.
“We welcome the certification of new independent bodies by the Irish regulator,” said European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier. “We will support the effective and uniform development of this system across the EU to give all EU users greater rights online.”
The Dublin-based Appeal Centre, which has a one-off grant from the Oversight Board Trust, will be funded by fees charged to social media companies on a case-by-case basis. Users who file a dispute will pay a nominal fee, which will be refunded if the decision is in their favor.
However, under DSA rules, online platforms can refuse to cooperate with such a dispute resolution body and it will not have the power to impose a binding agreement on the parties.
The Appeal Center will have a board made up of seven non-executive directors.
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