First certified dispute resolution body under the DSA: User Rights is making an impact.
User Rights sets a new standard for fair and transparent decision-making on social media – and, with Rule AI, puts user rights into practice more quickly. As the first dispute resolution body in Germany to be certified by the Federal Network Agency under Article 21 of the Digital Services Act (DSA), User Rights provides an independent, transparent alternative to going to court – with a process designed for scalability and verifiable reasoning.
Challenge
Moderation decisions on social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest (e.g. deletion, suspension or non-removal of reported content) are often difficult for those affected to verify and, in the event of a dispute, can quickly take too long. At the same time, there is a need for a procedure that is legally sound, independent and easily accessible to users.
Solution
As a certified dispute resolution body under Article 21 of the DSA (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065), User Rights is designed to deliver scalable, transparent decisions – supported by Rule AI from the Rulemapping Group. Specifically, every reported social media post is checked for violations of German criminal law (StGB) and the platform’s respective terms of use (Terms and Conditions), as well as EU law and sanctions law. To this end, the relevant regulations have been converted into automatically verifiable and deterministic rule maps, which are then applied to specific posts using ‘Rule AI’. The final decision remains subject to legal review by a human-in-the-loop.
Impact
TikTok is the first platform to have implemented decisions made by User Rights on the basis of the European Digital Services Act (DSA). In doing so, TikTok marks an important step towards establishing transparent dispute resolution bodies for social media platforms. Well over 10,000 cases have already been successfully submitted and processed.
Rulemapping handles the entire process, from the user’s complaint submission through detailed analysis to legal review against terms of use, the German Criminal Code (StGB) and EU law, in order to decide the case under human supervision (human-in-the-loop). In parallel, the system manages all communication with the user as well as the entire case handling (billing, reporting, deadline management, etc.) with the respective platform.
