Meta repeatedly snubs EU body over Facebook and Instagram user bans

An independent body which hears disputes from social media users in the EU says Meta virtually never replies when it raises cases of people who say they have been wrongly banned from their accounts.

Appeals Centre Europe looked at 4,600 cases of Facebook, Instagram and Threads users who said they had been wrongly banned, but Meta provided evidence in fewer than 100 of these cases.

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.

Meta has been contacted for comment.

Appeals Centre Europe is one of a number of independent dispute settlement bodies which allow people in the EU to challenge social media platforms' decisions including on account bans and content moderation.

Its report shows only a snapshot of the wider social media landscape in Europe, where hundreds of millions of pieces of content are taken down by platforms every year for a variety of reasons.

Under EU law, online platforms should "engage in good faith" with the body, but its decision is not legally binding.

Account bans were the biggest issue reported to it in the year leading 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," it said in its transparency report.

Meta provided relevant content for fewer than 100 out of more than 4,600 account ban cases, the report said, "causing significant frustration among users".

Last year, more than 500 people contacted the BBC with complaints about their Instagram and Facebook accounts being banned without being able to appeal or speak to somebody at Meta.

Some spoke of the profound personal toll it has taken on them, including concerns that the police could become involved, and the effect bans could have on their online businesses.

Meta repeatedly refused to comment on the problems its users faced - though it frequently overturned bans when the BBC raised individual cases with it.

Alleged hate speech not removed

The Appeals Centre report also made judgements on content flagged to it which users said should be taken down, including more than 1,400 cases of content flagged as hate speech.

"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," chief executive Thomas Hughes said.

He cited examples including misogynistic, racist, homophobic and transphobic posts.

On TikTok, 83% of potential hate speech was not taken down, followed by 74% for Instagram.

On Facebook the figure was 61%, while on YouTube it was 58%.

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.

And it noted an AI-generated video about the Russia-Ukraine war was also allowed to stay up on TikTok, which it believed was in breach of its rules on misinformation.

However, social media companies did not provide relevant content for review in 72% of the more than 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 said.

Appeals Centre Europe added it did not receive consistent data on whether their decisions were implemented or not, and was "pushing platforms to provide this".

TikTok would not give the BBC an on-the-record response, but according to the company, it engaged with the Appeals Centre through meetings and emails.

The company's transparency report for the second half of 2025 said TikTok received 56,549 user reports of illegal content relating to hate speech in the EU, with 88.7% reviewed within 24 hours.

In the same period, another transparency report said it removed 112 million pieces of content, including videos, comments and adverts, which broke its terms of service.

YouTube said 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 said it was committed to engaging with out-of-court dispute bodies such as Appeals Centre Europe, and had reached an agreement to share disputed content with them.

In a transparency report which covered the whole world, YouTube owner Google said more than 150,000 videos and 32,000 channels were removed from the platform between October and December 2025.

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