Eighteen months after accepting our first disputes, our second Transparency Report shows the clear and growing need for independent review of social media decisions.
During the 12 months covered by this report (April 2025 – March 2026),1 we received more than 24,000 disputes from people and organisations across the EU. More than half of these were eligible disputes, meaning they fell within our certified scope and included sufficient information for us to process them.2 We saw a clear increase in disputes, receiving nine times as many eligible cases in March 2026 than we did in April 2025.
Where we were able to review the content in question, on average we disagreed with the platform’s decision 59% of the time. For both cases about content which was removed (where we overturned the platform’s decision in 52% of cases) and cases about potentially harmful content that had been left up (where we overturned the platform’s decision in 63% of cases), we decided in favour of the user more than half the time. This shows the importance of dispute settlement bodies in helping users challenge both platform decisions to remove their content and to leave harmful content on social media.
Our decisions are starting to reveal patterns of prominent and recurring issues with how social media platforms moderate content. For example, in 70% of cases where platforms left up content after it was reported as hate speech, we disagreed with the platform. This included cases of hateful content targeting Roma people, migrants, LGBTQI+ communities and religious minorities. In around two-thirds (65%) of cases where platforms removed content for violating their restricted goods and services policy, we also disagreed with their decision.
While our work is starting to help identify patterns that point to flawed implementation of the platforms’ policies, several challenges still remain in making out-of-court dispute settlement more efficient and effective.
Disappointingly, the share of cases where we are receiving content from platforms has plateaued. In the vast majority of cases related to account suspensions, platforms are unable or unwilling to provide the content which allows us to independently review their decisions.
Download our Transparency Report and submit a dispute now.
1. This period (April 2025 – March 2026) overlaps with the period covered by our last Transparency Report (November 2024 – August 2025), as we wanted to provide a full year of data in this report.
2. For more information about the Appeals Centre’s scope, please read our Rules of Procedure.
