Vigilia received a representation mandate from a French political commentator active on both Instagram and TikTok.
One of his recent posts featured a caricature of French politician Marine Le Pen in the context of theaccusations of misuse of European Parliament funds faced by her party. The post was taken down by TikTok for allegedly breaching the platform’s “Suicide and self-harm” rules.
Although the user filed a complaint against TikTok’s moderation decision, the platform refused to reverse its decision.
A review of TikTok’s “self-harm” policies does not suggest that political satire content falls in scope (although some might consider Ms Le Pen’s actions as political self-harm). This case therefore has all the hallmarks of a moderation mistake by the platform.
As such, Vigilia is representing the user under the out-of-court dispute settlement mechanism created by the Digital Services Act to have the content reinstated and his right to free expression recognized.