In November last year, we held an incredible event in our Dublin office focussing on a development in the fast-evolving landscape of the Digital Services Act.

The new development in the DSA is the launch of the Appeals Centre Europe, one of the first certified out-of-court settlement bodies under the Digital Services Act. Based in Dublin, the Appeals Centre Europe will play a pivotal role in resolving disputes related to content moderation decisions on online platforms across the EU.

We were joined by Thomas Hughes, CEO of the Appeals Centre Europe, who joined our DSA advisory team in discussing the new DSA development. 

Key takeaways from the event includes:

What is the Appeals Centre Europe? 

The Appeals Centre Europe is an independent out-of-court settlement body, set up to resolve content disputes in accordance with Article 21 of the DSA. Further information about the Appeals Centre Europe is available on its website here.

Expansion of scope: 

The Appeals Centre Europe is certified to take disputes from social media platforms, and intends to expand its reach beyond Meta, TikTok and YouTube next year to all sizes and types of social media companies.

Decision making based on platform’s terms and policies:
The Appeals Centre Europe resolves disputes by applying the terms and policies of the relevant platform and will not have access to each platform’s internal guidance on those terms and policies.

Appeal process: 

The Appeals Centre Europe encourages (but does not require) parties to resolve disputes through platforms’ internal complaint mechanisms under Article 20 of the DSA. Where resolution is unsuccessful, platforms or users can submit a complaint to the Appeals Centre Europe website, including a content ID or statement of reasons for the decision which will be provided by the platform.

Watch a quick video here.