Meta's Limited Response to EU Appeals on Account Bans
An independent dispute resolution body in the European Union reports that Meta seldom responds when it raises cases involving users who claim they have been wrongly banned from Facebook, Instagram, and Threads accounts.
Appeals Centre Europe reviewed 4,600 such cases but found that Meta provided evidence in fewer than 100 instances.
Last year, the BBC received communications from hundreds of Facebook and Instagram users worldwide, including from the UK, who asserted they had been unfairly banned and lacked any means to recover their accounts.
Meta has been approached for comment on these issues.
Appeals Centre Europe is among several independent bodies in the EU that enable users to challenge decisions made by social media platforms regarding account bans and content moderation.
The report from Appeals Centre Europe offers a snapshot of the broader social media environment in Europe, where platforms remove hundreds of millions of content items annually for various reasons.
Under EU legislation, online platforms are expected to "engage in good faith" with such bodies, although their decisions are not legally binding.
Account bans represented the most frequently reported issue to Appeals Centre Europe in the year up to March 2026.
"In the vast majority of cases related to account suspensions, platforms are unable or unwilling to provide the content which allows us to independently review their decisions," the transparency report stated.
Meta supplied relevant content for fewer than 100 out of over 4,600 account ban cases, the report noted,
"causing significant frustration among users".
In 2025, more than 500 individuals contacted the BBC with complaints about Instagram and Facebook account bans without access to appeals or direct communication with Meta.
Some users described the significant personal impact, including concerns about potential police involvement and the effects on their online businesses.
Meta consistently declined to comment on these user issues, although it often reversed bans when the BBC raised specific cases.
Alleged Hate Speech Content Not Removed
The Appeals Centre report also evaluated content flagged by users as hate speech, covering more than 1,400 cases.
"In more than two-thirds of our decisions about hate speech, we found that platforms failed to enforce their own policies and left up hateful content," said chief executive Thomas Hughes.
He cited examples including misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and transphobic posts.
On TikTok, 83% of potential hate speech content was not removed, followed by 74% on Instagram.
Facebook left 61% of such content up, while YouTube's figure was 58%.
One case involved racist comments comparing Black footballers to monkeys remaining on Instagram after a Champions League match.
Another concerned antisemitic videos shared by prominent figures in Poland that remained on YouTube, contradicting the platform's hate speech policy.
The report also highlighted an AI-generated video about the Russia-Ukraine war that remained on TikTok, which was considered a violation of the platform's misinformation rules.
However, social media companies did not provide relevant content for review in 72% of over 10,000 reports.
"In the nearly 3,000 decisions where we were able to review the content, we disagreed with the platform 59% of the time," the dispute body stated.
Appeals Centre Europe noted inconsistent data on whether their decisions were implemented and is urging platforms to provide this information.
TikTok declined to give the BBC an on-the-record response but reportedly engaged with the Appeals Centre through meetings and emails.
The company's transparency report for the second half of 2025 indicated TikTok received 56,549 user reports of illegal content related to hate speech in the EU, with 88.7% reviewed within 24 hours.
During the same period, TikTok removed 112 million pieces of content, including videos, comments, and advertisements that violated its terms of service.
YouTube stated its hate speech policy "outlines clear guidelines prohibiting content that promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on certain attributes. We enforce this policy rigorously."
The company affirmed its commitment to cooperating with out-of-court dispute bodies such as Appeals Centre Europe and has agreed to share disputed content with them.
In a global transparency report, YouTube's parent company Google reported removing more than 150,000 videos and 32,000 channels between October and December 2025.
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