By Supantha Mukherjee
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – An independent body, backed by Meta Platforms (NASDAQ :)’ Oversight Board Trust, has been certified by Ireland’s media regulator to resolve appeals against policy violation decisions by social media companies in the European Union.
Appeals Center Europe, established as a certified out-of-court dispute resolution body under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), will initially decide cases involving Facebook, ByteDance’s TikTok and Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s YouTube, and will include more social include media. media platforms over time.
With a team of experts, the agency will apply a human review to each case within 90 days and decide whether platforms’ decisions comply with their content policies, a statement said.
The Dublin-based Appeals Centre, which will receive a one-off grant from the Oversight Board Trust, will be funded by fees charged to social media companies for each case. Users who raise a dispute pay a small fee, which is refunded if the decision is in their favor.
However, under the rules of the DSA, online platform providers may refuse to engage with such a dispute resolution body, and this body will not have the power to impose a binding settlement of the dispute on the parties.
Former Oversight Board Director Thomas Hughes will take on a new role as the inaugural CEO of the Appeals Center.
“We want users to have the choice to bring a dispute to a body that is independent of governments and companies, and that aims to ensure that platforms’ content policies are applied fairly and impartially,” Hughes said.
The Professional Center will have a board of seven non-executive directors and will start receiving disputes from users before the end of the year.
(This story has been corrected to say “Oversight Board Trust” instead of “Oversight Board” in paragraphs 1 and 4)
