Frequently Asked Questions

Click ‘Start Dispute’ in the header of this page to dispute a content moderation decision by Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Threads or YouTube.

You can manage and track your case through our online case management portal here.

The Appeals Centre is staffed by full-time, professional case reviewers with experience of applying platforms’ content policies. We also have reviewers with linguistic and subject-matter expertise. The compensation of our case reviewers is not linked to how they decide cases.

Anyone located in the European Union can submit a dispute.

Our case reviewers apply platforms’ content policies (terms and conditions) when deciding disputes. When making these decisions, we will apply our normative framework which includes a human rights analysis.

We currently accept disputes about content on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Threads, YouTube and Google Maps. We intend to expand to other social media platforms over time.

Content can be submitted in most languages commonly spoken in the EU. However, the dispute must be communicated to us in one of our seven operating languages of the Appeals Centre: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Dutch, so you must use one of those languages when submitting a dispute.

We currently accept disputes about individual pieces of content which have been removed or left up by Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Threads, Google Maps and YouTube. This includes videos, photos, text posts and comments. We also review decisions by these platforms to suspend or disable a user’s account, as well as removals of a Page or Group (Facebook and Instagram), or Channel (YouTube).

See our ‘Dispute Process‘ page for more information on how we review and decide disputes.

If you are unhappy about your experience with the Appeals Centre you can send us feedback. We review complaints if they are made within 21 days of the incident about which you have concerns. When contacting us, please provide examples of any potential issues. We will use your feedback to make improvements to our service, and complaints are regularly reviewed by our leadership.

We aim to make our decision available to you and the platform within 90 calendar days of you submitting your dispute. In most cases, however, we expect to make our decision more quickly. If we encounter unexpected delays, we will send a message to the email address provided when you submitted your appeal. For complex disputes, we may extend the timeframe for making our decision to up to 180 calendar days.

There is currently no user fee to submit a dispute.

For content, accounts, Pages or Groups which have been removed or suspended, the platform must have made its decision in the last six months. For disputes about potentially harmful content still visible on the platform, there is no time limit on when the user reported the content to the platform.

While the Appeals Centre’s decisions are non-binding, platforms must engage in good faith and our decision may result in the platform overturning its previous decision on the content in question.

Decisions about how your account behaved (not what you posted)

We can review decisions about content, for example, a post, photo or video that was removed or left up. We cannot review decisions the platform made about your account’s behaviour. This includes decisions where the platform believes an account:

• is fake or created by a bot
• pretends to be someone or something it is not (a deceptive persona)
• uses automation, bots or scripts
• is part of a coordinated network of accounts
• was created to get around a previous ban or restriction

These decisions are based on account activity patterns, not on a specific piece of content, and they fall outside the scope of the law we operate under (the EU Digital Services Act).

Hacked or compromised accounts

If you have lost access to your account because it was hacked or compromised, this is a security issue. Only the platform can help you recover your account, please use the platform’s account recovery process.

Accounts suspended because they are linked to another suspended account

If your account was suspended only because the platform linked it to a different account that was already suspended, we cannot review this decision.

Impersonation

Decisions about accounts impersonating a person, brand or organisation are handled through the platform’s own impersonation reporting process, and we cannot review them.

Copyright and intellectual property

If your content was removed because of a copyright claim (or another intellectual property issue), this is covered by separate legal processes. Please follow the platform’s copyright dispute or counter-notice process instead.

Accounts removed for being under the minimum age

If the platform removed an account because it believes the account holder is below the minimum age required, we cannot review this decision.

Decisions made more than 6 months ago

We can only review platform decisions made against you as the person who posted the content within the last 6 months (180 days). If the decision is older than this, it is outside our time limit and we cannot accept the appeal.

Identity verification

We cannot review decisions where the platform requires you to verify your identity (for example, by providing ID documents) or outcomes of that verification process.

Located outside of the EU 

We can only review decisions for users that are based in an EU member state. 

Child Sexual Abuse Material

If the platform removed an account because it believes the account holder has shared child sexual abuse material, we cannot review this decision.

Spam decisions related to technical or automated systems 

If your account was restricted or suspended due to spam related to technical or automated systems we cannot review this decision. Examples of this include: 

• Posting the same content repeatedly across multiple channels, as we lack access to all of the content
• Mass uploading content that you scraped from other creators. We would have no way to verify if the content has been scraped.

A full list of areas we cover (and do not cover) is available in our Rules of Procedure (“Is My Dispute Eligible For Review?”, Section 8).

There are two types of procedural decisions: in favour of the user and in favour of the platform.

Procedural decision in favour of the user

We make this kind of decision when we have been unable to make a determination that the platform’s decision was either correct or incorrect due to a failure by the platform to provide sufficient information related to the dispute.  In these cases, we issue a procedural decision in your favour, and notify the platform.

Procedural decision in favour of the platform

We make this kind of decision when your case is initially accepted, but later found to be outside the scope of Article 21 of the Digital Services Act based on information provided by the platform, and verified by us, during the dispute process. This could be for a number of reasons, such as the account suspension happened more than six months before you submitted the case or you are not located in an EU country. The Appeals Centre will then issue a procedural decision in favour of the platform and notify you of the outcome.

We regularly receive messages from people who have received a positive decision from us, but the platform hasn’t taken action. While individual decisions are not binding on platforms, under the EU’s Digital Services Act they must engage in good faith with the Appeals Centre. So far, we’ve seen many cases where platforms have reversed their original decision, but we know this isn’t happening often enough. ⁠ ⁠

⁠To help users, we have created this User Support Guide with additional options for challenging platforms’ decisions.

Yes, an organisation can also submit disputes. We offer tailored support to help organisations understand out-of-court dispute settlement and how to submit disputes to the Appeals Centre. Please contact us to discuss next steps.

We regularly publish transparency reports highlighting the disputes submitted over the past year, as well as how often we overturn the platform’s decisions. This data will highlight trends in platforms’ content moderation and help third-parties identify systemic risks created by failures in social media moderation.

Once the Appeals Centre has taken a decision on your case, we will inform both the user and the platform. Our decisions are not binding on platforms but, as part of the requirement to engage in good faith with the Appeals Centre, they should review our decision and decide whether to implement it.

Unfortunately not, in order for your dispute to be eligible for review by the Appeals Centre you must be located in an EU Member State. Therefore, if you are located in a country which is part of the EEA or EFTA but not part of the EU (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Leichenstein), we cannot accept your dispute at this time.

It is possible that, in the future, some of these countries will incorporate the EU’s Digital Services Act into their national legislation. At this point, we may be able to accept disputes from these countries.

Even if our decision is in your favour, we cannot guarantee that the platform will restore your content or account. The final decision lies with the platform.

We can guarantee that, for eligible cases where the platform provides the content, an expert from our team will independently review your case and we will inform you of the decision.