📖 Content moderation glossary
What is notice and action under the DSA?
In short
Notice and action is the mechanism, set out in Article 16 of the Digital Services Act, by which hosting services must let any person or entity report content they consider illegal, and must then process those reports in a timely, diligent, non-arbitrary and objective manner.
The mechanism must be easy to access, user-friendly and available electronically. A notice should contain, in particular, an explanation of why the content is considered illegal, its exact location such as a URL, the name and email of the person reporting (with exceptions for certain offences) and a statement that the notice is made in good faith.
Once a notice is received, the provider sends a confirmation of receipt if contact details were given, takes a decision, and informs the reporter of that decision and of any redress available. It must also say if it used automated means to process or decide on the notice.
Example: a reader reports a comment under a news article that publicly accuses a named person of a crime. The report is logged, a moderator assesses it, the comment is removed, and both the reporter and the author are informed, the author through a statement of reasons.
At OpenModeration, reports are handled by our team, with a written reason for every decision and an activity log: you see each report and its outcome in real time and can step in whenever you want.