ACE, certified by Coimisiún na Meán as an out-of-court dispute settlement (ODS) body under Article 21 of the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), opened its doors in November 2024.

It can issue non-binding rulings on cases relating to Facebook, TikTok and YouTube in the EU, and platforms are obliged under the DSA to engage with its process.

ACE said yesterday that it has received over 1,500 disputes from across the EU so far, spanning content in 47 languages from every EU member state.

The largest number of disputes have come from Italy, followed by France and Germany, while the most common subject of complaints have related to adult nudity, bullying and harassment, and restricted goods and services like drugs and alcohol.

Just over three-quarters (76 per cent) of disputes have concerned Facebook, followed by TikTok on 21 per cent and YouTube on three per cent.

“Since we finalised our data-sharing agreement with Meta in late January, we have issued over 140 decisions about potential violations of Facebook policies including hate speech, bullying and misinformation, applying human review to every case,” ACE said in a statement.

“77 out of 141 of our decisions about Facebook (55 per cent) overturned Meta’s original decision to leave up or take down the content, clearly demonstrating the value of users challenging platforms’ decisions to independent bodies like the Appeals Centre.

“In some policy areas, this overturn rate was higher. Our first decisions overturned 67 per cent of Facebook cases related to restricted goods and services and 59 per cent of Facebook cases about adult nudity and sexual activity.”

Meta “has already started implementing our decisions, and we will release more information about this in our first transparency report which will be published by mid-year”, it added.

ACE made its first decisions about content on TikTok last week and says it will soon issue its first decisions about content on YouTube.

Taylor Wessing Ireland played a central role in ACE’s opening last year, advising it on all aspects relating to its establishment and certification.