A European “court of appeal” dedicated to the management of disputes with online platforms has just been created. It should help smooth out moderation issues.
Source : DPP Business And Tax – Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
A new European organization has just been created. Required by the European Digital Services Regulation (DSA), the “ Appeals Center Europe» (ACE) will now have the difficult task of collecting requests from European citizens who feel wronged by the moderation decisions of the major platforms.
Operational since this Thursday, November 14, 2024, the site built by the EU wants to offer “a simple procedure » et « an intuitive portal » pour « disputes related to content published on social networks“. Concretely, this “court of appeal” will serve as a mediator between individuals and social networks to simplify the filing of complaints with large platforms.
€5 to file a complaint
If mechanisms already exist to challenge moderation decisions, they are specific to each company and different each time. The ACE therefore wants to offer a centralized platform for submitting disputes. The platform brings together several European regulators, including Arcom in France which worked on the creation of this organization.
For the moment, only Facebook, YouTube and TikTok are supported by the ACE, but the organization says it wants “expand [sa] support for other social media platforms.» And if the dispute can relate to content written in “most languages commonly spoken within the EU“, exchanges must be made in one of the six languages spoken by the ACE, namely “English, French, German, Spanish, Italian or Dutch ».
The ACE aims to provide a simple interface for filing a complaint // Source: Appeals Center Europe
Finally, the last criterion for being able to complain to the EU about a moderation decision considered excessive: you will have to pay fees.in the amount of €5» at the time of submitting the dispute. This sum, which risks chilling more than one person, is claimed for “avoid abuse» and focus on treating “legitimate cases from users“. If the ACE decides in your favor, the amount will then be refunded to you.
No binding value
Once the dispute has been filed, the organization promises to get back to the Internet user concerned “within 90 calendar days» and ideally “much faster» specifies the site. The cases of “litiges complexes» may however take up to 180 days (6 months). Small problem however, the decisions of the ACE have “notno binding value ».
To go further
Moderation: how will Facebook’s “Supreme Court” work?
Indeed, as the organization writes on its site, the platforms are only required to “cooperate in good faith», but not necessarily obey the judgment rendered by the ACE. Questioned by Le Figaro, the head of the brand new organization nevertheless explains that “it will be in the interest of the platform to apply our decision […] If it does not do so, it will have to justify itself to the regulator“. We will therefore see if Facebook, YouTube and TikTok will be sufficiently afraid of Brussels.
