An independent body, supported by Meta Platforms, has launched the Oversight Board Trust. It is certified by the media regulator in Ireland to handle appeals against policy violation decisions made by social media companies in the European Union. The Appeals Centre Europe, established as a certified out-of-court dispute settlement body under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), will initially handle cases related to Facebook, TikTok (owned by ByteDance), and YouTube (owned by Alphabet’s Google). It plans to include more social media platforms over time.
The body, based in Dublin, will apply human review to every case within 90 days, with a team of experts deciding whether platforms’ decisions align with their content policies. The Appeals Centre will be funded through fees charged to social media companies for each case. Users raising a dispute will pay a nominal fee, which will be refunded if the decision is in their favor.
However, under the rules of the DSA, online platform providers may choose not to engage with such a dispute settlement body, and the body will not have the power to impose a binding settlement of the dispute on the parties.
Thomas Hughes, the former director of the Oversight Board, will now serve as the inaugural CEO of the Appeals Centre. “We want users to have the choice to raise a dispute to a body that is independent from governments and companies, and focused on ensuring that platforms’ content policies are fairly and impartially applied,” Hughes said.
The Appeals Centre will have a board of seven non-executive directors and will start receiving disputes from users before the end of the year.