Data published by Appeals Centre Europe, an independent organisation created to resolve disputes on social media platforms moderation policies, said it received 24,000 complaints between April 2025 and March 2026.
The largest number was received from France (4,400), followed by Belgium and Italy. This compares with 3,000 received from Spain, 1,800 from Germany, 427 from Sweden, 350 from Denmark, and 235 from Austria.
The main reasons were hate speech and hateful behaviours, account suspensions or restrictions, adult nudity and sexual activity, misinformation, and fraud and scams.
In France, Denmark and Sweden, the biggest number of complaints was related to Facebook, while in Austria, Germany and Spain more complaints were directed against Instagram.
Appeals Centre Europe said it issued decisions on more than 10,000 disputes and disagreed with the platforms’ stance in 59 percent of cases for which they were able to review the content.
Examples included racist comments left on Instagram following a Champions League match, antisemitic videos posted on YouTube, an AI-generated video about the Russia-Ukraine war breaking TikTok’s rules on misinformation, and the wrong removal by Facebook of pictures by a photographer based on nudity policies.
The EU Digital Services Act, entered into force in 2022, sets rules for content moderation, user safety and transparency of online platforms. Under the regulation, users and organisations can challenge decisions on social media account suspensions, deleted posts, and content violations bringing cases at no cost to out-of-court dispute settlement bodies.
Appeals Centre Europe, a certified body to carry out this task, currently monitors Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Threads, TikTok and YouTube.
Of the 12,400 disputes considered eligible by the organisation from April 2025 to March 2026, nearly 5,200 were about Facebook, 5,000 about Instagram, more than 1,700 about TikTok and nearly 500 about YouTube.
The group disagreed with 75 percent of cases where platforms left up content after it was reported for violating rules on violence and crime, 70 percent of those related to hate speech against Roma people, migrants, LGBTQI+ communities and religious minorities, and 65 percent of cases where content was removed for violating rules on restricted goods and services.
The group decisions are not binding and in many cases were ignored, but “platforms must engage with dispute settlement bodies in good faith. That means they should consider whether to implement our decisions and inform both dispute settlement bodies and social media users about whether they have done so,” says Matthew Sells, communications and marketing director at Appeals Centre Europe .
“While it is alarming that platforms are leaving up content that violates their policies so often, it is positive so many people and organisations have submitted disputes in this area,” the report argues.
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