Op-Ed: “ACE Up the Sleeve? Appeals Centre Europe (ACE) as Meta’s Bid to Hegemonise Social Media Content Moderation in the EU”
Lorenzo Gradoni & Pietro Ortolani
Social media content moderation litigation is notoriously tricky. Every day, digital platforms make countless controversial decisions, including about whether to take down or leave up posts or comments. Although most of these disputes have little economic value, they often raise important questions of principle about freedom of expression and the overweening power of platforms as de facto arbiters of speech. For obvious reasons, these disputes rarely reach ordinary courts. On the other hand, the internal grievance procedures set up by the platforms themselves, despite being hugely expensive, do not produce anything more than perfunctory justice that often leaves users confused and disappointed.
Against this background looms the Ov