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17
November
2025

Regulating online terrorist content – Balancing public safety and fundamental rights

Online terrorist content is a threat to fundamental rights, rule of law and democracy. EU measures to tackle such content aim to prevent terrorism while upholding these values. FRA’s report looks at how online terrorist content is detected and removed under EU legislation. It highlights challenges in interpreting rules, risks of over-removal and potential impacts on freedom of expression. It finds that moderation practices by authorities and platforms can disproportionately affect certain groups, such as Muslims and Arabic speakers, while far-right content often receives less scrutiny. The findings, based on research and expert interviews with those addressing online terrorist content, offer ways to improve transparency in content moderation and to better balance public security and fundamental rights, contributing to wider debates on regulating online content responsibly.

In line with the ECHR and the Charter, Member States are under an obligation to secure the rights of everyone within their jurisdiction. This also means that HSPs and content providers have the right to an effective remedy in the territory where they claim that their rights were abused without having to turn to another Member State [91]
 See also FRA, Proposal for a regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online and its fundamental rights implications – Opinion of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2019, p. 29.
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Article 4 of the regulation contains an important set of safeguards in this regard. When a competent authority issues a removal order to an HSP that has its main establishment or legal representative in another Member State, it has the obligation to notify the competent authority in such host Member State of the removal order. PERCI, launched by Europol, supports this information exchange. This latter competent authority can, on its own initiative or upon request of HSPs or content providers, scrutinise such cross-border orders. If it determines that the order seriously or manifestly infringes the regulation or the fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter, it can invalidate it and order the HSP to reinstate the content.

Article 9 of the regulation requires Member States to ensure that HSPs and content providers can effectively challenge decisions taken under the regulation, including removal orders, decisions related to cross-border scrutiny, specific measures or penalties before a court of the Member State whose competent authority took that decision.

In addition, as discussed in Chapter 3, the regulation envisages in Article 10 an obligation for HSPs to have in place effective and accessible complaint mechanisms for content providers affected by specific measures.

Owing partly to the relatively slow uptake of the regulation across the EU, these key safeguards have only been tested in practice to a limited degree, and some of them not at all. Given its cross-border nature, scrutiny pursuant to Article 4 has typically only been applied by competent authorities in those Member States which host larger HSPs receiving removal orders from different Member States. Concerning judicial remedies pursuant to Article 9, fieldwork findings and additional data collected by FRA through desk research in all Member States did not identify any cases by the end of 2024 where HSPs or content providers availed themselves of their right to challenge a removal order or another decision issued under the regulation before national courts. This makes it challenging to adequately assess the effectiveness of this provision as a fundamental rights safeguard at this stage and to fully evaluate the impact of the regulation in this respect.

The mechanisms for scrutinising cross-border removal orders and seeking remedies are particularly relevant from the perspective of the right to an effective remedy and a fair trial (Article 47 of the Charter). However, they serve, in their application, to protect all other rights impacted under the regulation.

This chapter first summarises the findings of the research as regards the fundamental rights implications arising from the practical application of the mechanism for scrutinising cross-border removal orders. Afterwards, it looks at the main concerns regarding the impact on the right to an effective remedy as arising from the research.

The mechanism for scrutinising cross-border removal orders can only be functional if Member States appoint the competent authorities for this task. This factor hindered the use of this safeguard in the period following the adoption of the regulation, when such authorities did not exist in some Member States, including those hosting large HSPs that have been addressed by multiple cross-border removal orders. While this gap has been largely addressed since then, some interviewees from competent authorities and civil society / academia nevertheless note that the main attention of implementation efforts across the EU has been on removal orders, and cross-border scrutiny largely remains an afterthought despite the importance attached to it by the regulation.

All the emphasis has been put on the removal orders, but the scrutiny is left behind.

Competent authority expert

In practice, several specific obstacles adversely impact the effectiveness of the scrutiny mechanism. As noted by many experts from civil society / academia and experts from competent authorities entrusted with this task, Member States’ authorities do not necessarily actively use the scrutiny option in practice. The regulation envisages it as mandatory only in case it is requested by an HSP or a content provider, and while competent authorities can choose to scrutinise any cross-border removal order they receive, they are not compelled to do so. Some experts from competent authorities entrusted with this task state that they conduct (or would conduct) scrutiny systematically in each case, to also have an overview of what content appears on platforms in their Member State. Some others, however, assume that the mechanism is triggered only upon an HSP or content provider’s request, or perceive it as a spot check rather than a systematic exercise.

I don’t always open the file to see the content. Sometimes, yes. But it’s only because I am curious about the matter. […] It’s a matter of trust between states in Europe. Maybe if [the removal order came from] the Chinese, the Russians …

Competent authority expert

Findings also show a sense of mutual trust among some competent authorities responsible for scrutiny towards authorities of other Member States, which in practice means they might not critically review, if at all, each other’s removal orders for possible infringement of the regulation or fundamental rights. Some experts responsible for scrutiny say that they consider the expertise of their colleagues issuing removal orders to be a sufficient guarantee, which, however, deprives this safeguard of its intended effect. Interviewed experts from competent authorities who either themselves conduct scrutiny of cross-border removal orders or who have had their removal orders scrutinised by other Member States confirm that there have not yet been cases where a removal order would be invalidated by the scrutinising competent authority.

As discussed in Chapter 1, some interviewees also suggest that some authorities designated to carry out scrutiny, such as law enforcement or regulatory bodies, might not be equipped with the appropriate experience and training to undertake a fundamental rights review of decisions issued by authorities of other countries, something that courts have experience with and therefore would be better suited to do in practice.

Responses by competent authorities also indicate a certain lack of clarity on how to implement the scrutiny in practice. This includes core questions such as what criteria should be used to determine whether the removal order infringes fundamental rights. Interviewees also offer different views on what legal framework and national interpretation should be applied by the scrutinising authority in light of the absence of a common baseline for interpreting the definition of terrorist content under Article 2(7) (see Section 1.2).

A key precondition for exercising the right to an effective remedy, whether by seeking scrutiny in the case of cross-border removal orders pursuant to Article 4 or by challenging removal orders in court under Article 9, is the provision of sufficient information to content providers and HSPs [92]
 FRA, Proposal for a regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online and its fundamental rights implications – Opinion of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2019, pp. 30–32.
. The regulation acknowledges this by including a detailed list of information to be included in the removal order that national competent authorities are obliged to communicate to HSPs, including easily understandable information about the redress (Article 3(4)). It also provides a model removal order in its annex.

However, findings show limitations in this regard. Some HSPs and civil-society/academia experts note that the information provided in removal orders in practice is frequently insufficient. While some competent authorities provide elaborate reasoning, others do not include enough details or do not point to specific issues.

When it comes to content providers, the regulation leaves the specific implementation of this obligation up to the HSP, which can decide to only share the information about the reasons for the removal and possible remedies (not necessarily the full removal order), upon the content provider’s request (Articles 11(1) and 11(2)). Interviewees indicate limited effectiveness of this system in practice, stating that some HSPs might not inform – either at all or in a meaningful way – users about the fact that their content was removed under the regulation. Experts from HSPs which have not yet received removal orders indicate they might apply their general policies on removing content: one referring to making a case-by-case decision whether or not to inform content providers and the other stating that they do not currently have a system in place, although they envisage implementing it due to DSA requirements. This points to gaps in HSP awareness of this obligation under the regulation and its uniform future application, including in comparison with knowledge concerning DSA obligations.

[The absence of remedies so far] means that either the content is very clear and there is no question that it shouldn’t be circulated online [or] that many people do not know that they have the option to ask for the content to be re-assessed and re-uploaded.

Civil-society/academia expert

Furthermore, Article 11(3) allows competent authorities to instruct HSPs to temporarily withhold information about the removal from content providers for reasons of public security, including in the context of an investigation. While most interviews with experts from competent authorities and HSPs indicate that this option has not been frequently used in practice, some of them refer to this option as being used regularly, possibly systematically. While this exception can be justified in specific cases, if used widely, it risks rendering the remedies envisaged by the regulation inaccessible in practice.

Even where HSPs do notify content providers about the removal, some interviewees with content moderation experience recall that the manner in which HSPs inform users about their content being taken down (including those based on government requests such as removal orders under the regulation) is not always effective or transparent. Examples include putting a label in place of the content stating it was removed (not even mentioning what rules it violated specifically), which the user may not even notice, or sending a brief, low-profile notification to the user’s inbox. In such cases, the content provider may not realise the removal of the content, its reasons or its legal basis, which subsequently affects whether they use their right to challenge the removal.

Besides access to information about the removal, findings highlight the complexity of challenging decisions under the regulation in other Member States, particularly when it comes to content providers. The regulation requires that remedies under Article 9 be sought in the Member State whose authority issued the removal order, while cross-border scrutiny under Article 4 can be requested in the Member State in which the HSP has its main establishment or legal representative. However, given the transnational nature of the online environment, content providers may be nationals of another Member State or even a non-EU country, especially when it comes to large social networks that are most frequently addressed by removal orders. Initiating legal procedures before a foreign court, in a country with a different legal regime and facing language barriers, is likely to be a considerable obstacle for content providers, some experts from civil society / academia emphasise, making the threshold for obtaining a remedy for a possible violation of rights impossible to reach in practice.

The regulation does not offer content providers or HSPs any mechanism to effectively challenge the removal order in court before the removal is carried out. Even if such an appeal were possible within the one-hour period, it would not automatically suspend the removal of content.

While the presence of a specific provision of Article 9 on remedies can be considered positive, interviewees question whether the possibility to seek a remedy only ex post (which also applies to requesting the scrutiny of a cross-border removal order under Article 4) makes the remedy effective in the context of online content.

Several experts from competent authorities explain the underuse of remedial options by content providers due to the fact that removal orders are only issued on content that is clearly terrorist content.

Most of the time, the content is clearly terrorist in nature so I would not expect content providers come asking ‘Why did you take down my content?’

Competent authority expert

Interviewed experts from civil society / academia, and HSPs, on the other hand, emphasise that a large share of online content is time sensitive in its nature, such as a political statement related to recent and specific events. The impact of such content is effectively lost if it is only restored weeks later. For some types of content, such as livestreaming, reinstating is not possible or meaningful at all. In this context, some experts from these professional groups believe there is an imbalance between the speed of removals that have to take place very quickly and the speed of processing appeals that can take much longer. Unless it is compensated for by additional safeguards in the course of adoption of a removal order, such as ensuring the involvement of independent oversight (see Section 1.2), this risks undermining the core component of the right to an effective remedy as defined by the ECtHR and CJEU, namely its ability to offer effective redress given the circumstances and nature of the rights violation at stake [93]
 See FRA, Handbook on European law relating to access to justice, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2016, notably Sections 5.1 and 7.2.
. It may also reduce the incentive for content providers to seek a remedy in the first place.

Let’s say the content is taken down and then it is not online for six months, the story is dead, the website is dead, the organisation is dead. So, on one hand, you have to be extremely quick and everything has to be done within an extremely short time frame. But the ability to go against it and say, well, this might be not legal, […] takes much longer.

HSP expert

When it comes to HSPs, several interviewees across all professional groups warn that they might feel dissuaded from challenging removal orders. This can be due to trust in the authorities’ expertise but also due to elements of the regulation, such as the possibility for national competent authorities to impose high penalties for non-compliance and strict deadlines imposed on HSPs, and because the broader EU regulatory framework motivates companies towards compliance with requests from competent authorities. Experts from civil society / academia and some HSPs explain that, given the potential impact of non-compliance, only platforms that bill themselves as freedom of expression or privacy champions and that invest in having specific teams with critical awareness in terms of fundamental rights might decide to push back against the removal of content that they do not consider to be terrorist in nature.

It’s dangerous then when the competent authorities are thinking ‘well, the platform will provide the scrutiny’, and the platform is thinking ‘well, we defer to the expertise of the authorities’. So […] a loophole emerges which goes back to the concerns about freedom of expression and over enforcement.

Civil-society/academia expert

Findings also indicate that there might be diverging expectations among competent authorities and HSPs as to who should carry the main responsibility for ensuring that the application of the regulation does not violate fundamental rights. It is notable that while experts from competent authorities refer to the different safeguards and remedies available to the HSPs and content providers, testimonies of experts from other professional groups – and the underuse of Article 9 so far – tend to point to their limitations and show a degree of scepticism over their effectiveness. As one civil-society/academia expert highlights, if competent authorities believe that it is up to HSPs to provide further review of flagged content and, at the same time, HSPs tend to trust the assessment and due diligence of authorities, this can create a gap in accountability and in fundamental rights protection.