Art. 20 Internal complaint-handling system | DSA regulation | DSA

1. Providers of online platforms shall provide recipients of the service, including individuals or entities that have submitted a notice, for a period of at least six months following the decision referred to in this paragraph, with access to an effective internal complaint-handling system that enables them to lodge complaints, electronically and free of charge, against the decision taken by the provider of the online platform upon the receipt of a notice or against the following decisions taken by the provider of the online platform on the grounds that the information provided by the recipients constitutes illegal content or is incompatible with its terms and conditions:
  1. decisions whether or not to remove or disable access to or restrict visibility of the information;
  2. decisions whether or not to suspend or terminate the provision of the service, in whole or in part, to the recipients;
  3. decisions whether or not to suspend or terminate the recipients’ account;
  4. decisions whether or not to suspend, terminate or otherwise restrict the ability to monetise information provided by the recipients.
1. The period of at least six months referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall start on the day on which the recipient of the service is informed about the decision in accordance with Article 16(5) or Article 17.
1. Providers of online platforms shall ensure that their internal complaint-handling systems are easy to access, user-friendly and enable and facilitate the submission of sufficiently precise and adequately substantiated complaints.
1. Providers of online platforms shall handle complaints submitted through their internal complaint-handling system in a timely, non-discriminatory, diligent and non-arbitrary manner. Where a complaint contains sufficient grounds for the provider of the online platform to consider that its decision not to act upon the notice is unfounded or that the information to which the complaint relates is not illegal and is not incompatible with its terms and conditions, or contains information indicating that the complainant’s conduct does not warrant the measure taken, it shall reverse its decision referred to in paragraph 1 without undue delay.
1. Providers of online platforms shall inform complainants without undue delay of their reasoned decision in respect of the information to which the complaint relates and of the possibility of out-of-court dispute settlement provided for in Article 21 and other available possibilities for redress.
1. Providers of online platforms shall ensure that the decisions, referred to in paragraph 5, are taken under the supervision of appropriately qualified staff, and not solely on the basis of automated means.

Recipients of the service should be able to easily and effectively contest certain decisions of providers of online platforms concerning the illegality of content or its incompatibility with the terms and conditions that negatively affect them. Therefore, providers of online platforms should be required to provide for internal complaint-handling systems, which meet certain conditions that aim to ensure that the systems are easily accessible and lead to swift, non-discriminatory, non-arbitrary and fair outcomes, and are subject to human review where automated means are used. Such systems should enable all recipients of the service to lodge a complaint and should not set formal requirements, such as referral to specific, relevant legal provisions or elaborate legal explanations. Recipients of the service who submitted a notice through the notice and action mechanism provided for in this Regulation or through the notification mechanism for content that violate the terms and conditions of the provider of online platforms should be entitled to use the complaint mechanism to contest the decision of the provider of online platforms on their notices, including when they consider that the action taken by that provider was not adequate. The possibility to lodge a complaint for the reversal of the contested decisions should be available for at least six months, to be calculated from the moment at which the provider of online platforms informed the recipient of the service of the decision.

Article 20 Internal complaint-handling system

Relevant recitals