Meta’s non-compliance with EU dispute body exposes systemic content moderation failures
An independent EU dispute settlement body has highlighted significant cooperation gaps with Meta and widespread policy enforcement failures across major social media platforms, raising concerns for users and regulators alike.
Meta has faced sharp criticism from Appeals Centre Europe, an independent dispute settlement body established under the EU Digital Services Act, after failing to provide necessary evidence for the vast majority of user ban cases. The body’s recent transparency report revealed that Meta provided relevant content for fewer than 100 out of 4,600 cases involving users claiming wrongful bans from Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. This lack of cooperation has led to user frustration and delayed resolutions, with the body noting that Meta virtually never replies to raised cases.
Account bans were the biggest issue reported to Appeals Centre Europe in the year leading up to March 2026. The report stated that in the vast majority of cases related to account suspensions, platforms were unable or unwilling to provide the content which allows for independent review of their decisions. Under EU law, online platforms should engage in good faith with the body, but its decision is not legally binding. Last year, the BBC was contacted by hundreds of Facebook and Instagram users in countries around the world, including the UK, who claimed they had been wrongly banned and had no way of getting their accounts back.
The report also found that platforms failed to enforce their own hate speech policies in the majority of reviewed cases, with TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube leaving up significant amounts of flagged content. In more than two-thirds of decisions about hate speech, platforms failed to enforce their own policies and left up hateful content, including misogynistic, racist, homophobic and transphobic posts. Specific statistics on unenforced hate speech policies showed TikTok at 83%, Instagram at 74%, Facebook at 61%, and YouTube at 58%.
Appeals Centre Europe disagreed with platforms 59% of the time in nearly 3,000 decisions where content was reviewed. One example of a decision where Appeals Centre Europe disagreed with platforms included when racist comments comparing black footballers to monkeys were left up on Instagram following a Champions League match. In another instance, it said antisemitic videos on YouTube that were shared by prominent figures in Poland were allowed to remain on the site, which it said directly contradicted the platform's hate speech policy.
Social media companies did not provide relevant content for review in 72% of the more than 10,000 reports. TikTok received 56,549 user reports of illegal content relating to hate speech in the EU in the second half of 2025. YouTube owner Google reported removing more than 150,000 videos and 32,000 channels between October and December 2025. Appeals Centre Europe added that it did not receive consistent data on whether their decisions were implemented or not, and was pushing platforms to provide this.
