The DSA’s Sleeping Giant is Waking Up

When the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) entered fully into force in February 2024, many focused on its new powers to fine tech companies. But hidden within the DSA’s 60,000-plus words was a sleeping giant with enormous potential.

Article 21 gave individuals and entities the right to seek independent review of decisions by social media platforms by an out-of-court dispute settlement body.

This was revolutionary in several respects. Out-of-court settlement (ODS) bodies had to be “impartial and independent” and provide services “free of charge or at a nominal fee”, offering people and organizations the chance for an external review of a platform’s decision without spending time and money going to court. While dispute settlement bodies’ decisions are not binding, platforms have to “engage, in good faith, with the selected certified out-of-court dispute settlement body with a view to resolving the dispute.”

Turning potential into practice

When I first wrote about Article 21 in February 2024, no ODS bodies had been certified and no one knew how they would work in practice. Two years later, we’ve seen enormous progress. There are now nine dispute settlement bodies engaging together in the Network of Out-of-Court Dispute Settlement Bodies (ODS Network) to ensure that Article 21 lives up to its full potential. Several bodies, including Appeals Centre Europe, have published transparency reports, providing an independent insight into how platforms moderate their content. Last month, we published our second Transparency Report, with three key messages on how the ODS system is working so far.

1. People are using ODS bodies (once they know they exist)

When the first dispute settlement bodies, including the Appeals Centre, began accepting disputes in 2024, most people in the EU had no idea they existed. I remember sitting in our Dublin office on the first day of live operations in mid-November 2024, watching our first 23 cases coming in. A solid start, but – given the number of decisions platforms make every day – we knew this was the tip of the iceberg.

On May 28, 2026, the day we launched our second Transparency Report, we received 128 disputes from 22 EU countries – our highest number of cases from individuals in a single day. Our Transparency Report proves that, when people and organizations know about us, they challenge platforms’ decisions. From April 2025 to March 2026, we received more than 24,000 disputes from people and organizations across the EU. In total, we’ve now received over 30,000 disputes. While there’s still a long way to go in raising awareness about this new option, the progress we have made so far is encouraging.

2. Non-binding ≠ not important

Article 21 states that individual decisions by ODS bodies are not binding on platforms. However, despite being non-binding, these decisions are still important. They push platforms to reconsider their decisions and allow interested parties to identify recurring issues with how platforms moderate content.

Firstly, Article 21 requires platforms to engage in good-faith with ODS bodies. That means they should consider whether to implement our decisions (which they have done in many Appeals Center cases) and consistently tell both ODS bodies and the user whether they have done so.

Secondly, Article 34 and 35 focus on platforms’ obligations to identify and mitigate systemic risks. In both respects, the Appeals Centre can play an important role.

In February 2024, I wrote that “Article 21 will also create a source of data that will help identify systemic risks and harms. This regulatory feedback loop could strengthen the overall framework of the DSA.”

When viewed collectively by interested parties, our decisions are revealing patterns of prominent and recurring issues with how platforms moderate content. For example, in 70% of cases where platforms left up content after it was reported as hate speech, we disagreed with their decision. These included harmful content ranging from racist posts left on Instagram following a Champions League match to antisemitic content shared by prominent figures in Poland.

Our report highlights more than 1,000 disputes we received from just three organizations in Europe — digiQ, ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association and Media Diversity Institute Global — about potentially violating content left up by platforms. When we reviewed these posts, we overturned platforms’ decisions 68% of the time.

It quickly became clear that harmful content relating to the specific organization that submitted the disputes or an issue concerning this group was eluding the platform’s moderation checks and remaining online. This empirical data was valuable to the various organizations as it confirmed patterns of moderation failing that they had previously raised with the platforms. In April, we shared these case studies with the European Board for Digital Services as input to their second DSA Article 35 report on systemic risks.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of implementation of ODS decisions, in the vast majority of these cases, the violating content remains online, causing continued harm to people and communities. DSA Article 35, paragraph 1, section g. lists implementing the decisions of dispute settlement bodies, like the Appeals Centre, as a way of mitigating systemic risks. As such, we would strongly encourage platforms to implement these decisions and remove the violating content.

3. On account suspensions, platforms must try harder

For potentially violating content left up on platforms, our Transparency Report shows Article 21 is largely working as intended. After receiving more than 2,100 disputes from people and organizations in this area, we were able to independently review the content and show how often platforms were applying their policies correctly.

From April 2025 to March 2026, two-thirds of our eligible disputes from individual users (more than 5,000 disputes in total) challenged account suspensions. This came as no surprise. Banning people from social media has a big impact: from restricting information and expression, severing ties with friends, losing precious memories, or cutting off a crucial source of income.

However, despite receiving so many eligible disputes in this area, by the end of March 2026 we had received the relevant content from platforms and thus made decisions based on a review of case material on fewer than 150 account suspension disputes.

When we receive an eligible account suspension dispute, we ask the platform for the last piece of content that was subject to a moderation decision within the scope of the Appeals Centre Europe from that account. However, in the vast majority of cases, platforms are unable or unwilling to provide this. Every week, we receive messages from frustrated users who feel that this process has fallen short of their expectations.

A solution is currently being worked on under a best practices recommendations process. This involves platforms, out-of-court dispute settlement bodies, national regulators and the European Commission discussing standards which could help dispute settlement work better for everyone. Time is pressing and a solution must be found soon that allows for the independent review of account suspensions that users are entitled to under the Digital Services Act.

The sleeping giant is stirring, but there’s more to come

Appeals Centre Europe’s latest Transparency Report gives a glimpse of the potential of dispute settlement bodies: from the appetite from people and organizations across the EU, to how our decisions can help users and organizations identify and mitigate systemic risks. However, there’s still much to do: from helping people across the EU learn about their rights under the DSA (under Article 21, but also Article 20 on platforms’ internal complaint handling, Article 53 on the right to lodge a complaint, and others) to ensuring that platforms provide the content we need to independently review account suspensions.

The sleeping giant of Article 21 is stirring and there’s much more to come.