Article 21 of the Digital Services Act is perhaps the strangest provision of the European regulation. It grants users the right to appeal moderation decisions to independent, certified organizations. Last summer, the Article 21 - Academic Advisory Board was founded to address complex questions surrounding this unusual provision and the ecosystem it creates.

In this panel, the Advisory Board brings together representatives of ODS bodies, platforms, and experts to examine the role, functionality, and influence of ODS. The discussion explored what users expect when turning to ODS bodies, how these bodies can fulfill their role, and what value they add to the broader content moderation landscape. The panel considered how ODS bodies can deliver high-quality decisions at scale, what technology they need to succeed, and the regional and extraterritorial impact of ODS. It also discussed whether ODS changes the relationship between users and platforms, whether it contributes to the fair enforcement of terms and conditions, or whether it limits platform discretion in moderating speech. Finally, the panel placed ODS in a broader geopolitical context, considering the emerging regulatory tensions between the EU and the US and evaluating its potential to strengthen platform accountability.

Our takeaways:

1. ODS Bodies Are Reshaping Platform Accountability: Out-of-Court Dispute Settlement (ODS) bodies under the DSA are emerging as a new accountability layer, offering users independent appeal mechanisms and creating pressure for more transparent and consistent moderation practices across platforms.

2. Integration into Platform Systems Is Complex but Crucial: While platforms like TikTok are beginning to build structured engagement with ODS decisions, challenges around scale, localization, and workflow integration remain significant — highlighting the need for scalable, interoperable solutions to ensure compliance and real-world impact.

Trust & Safety teams are essential to platform integrity, compliance, and user retention but securing resources remains a challenge. Despite their impact, many teams struggle to articulate their value in a way that resonates with executives, leaving them underfunded and overlooked when it comes to budget allocation.

This workshop was designed to bridge that gap. Through interactive exercises, live case study breakdowns, and guided discussions, participants explored how to measure and communicate the ROI of their work. We unpacked real-world examples of companies that have successfully made the case for T&S investments, identifying the metrics that secured buy-in from leadership. Attendees learnt how to move beyond vague notions of “safety” and instead frame initiatives as essential to business, user retention, and regulatory preparedness.

The session was practical, providing worksheets, methodologies, and messaging templates that participants can take back home. They developed their ROI narrative, practice aligning safety initiatives with company-wide goals, and refine their stakeholder messaging to make a stronger case for resources. Participants had the opportunity to exchange insights and learn from each other’s experiences, ensuring that everyone leaves with not just new strategies, but a network of peers tackling the same issues.

Our takeaways:

1. Measuring ROI in Trust & Safety Is Challenging Much of the value comes from preventing negative outcomes—like harmful content, legal issues, or reputational crises—that are invisible when successfully avoided. Additionally, the benefits of T&S investments often appear indirectly or over the long term, making it hard to draw a straight line between specific actions and financial results.

2. ROI Goes Beyond Financial Metrics While cost savings and revenue protection matter, T&S also drives user trust, brand reputation, compliance, and operational efficiency. These factors contribute to the platform’s overall health and growth, even if they don’t always show up directly on the balance sheet.

3. Trust & Safety Should Be Embedded in Platform Strategy T&S shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought or just a compliance requirement—it needs to be a core part of the platform’s business model and strategic planning. By integrating T&S into product design and operations from the start, platforms can create a safer, more resilient environment that supports long-term success and competitive differentiation.

As decentralized platforms continue to grow in popularity, they are coming face to face with the challenge that everyone on the Internet must eventually confront: bad actors do bad things, no matter what you do. However, when the DNA of your service is designed to decentralise decision making, the difficulty increases tenfold. In this context, this panel explored the unique challenges and opportunities around T&S for decentralised services.

The session considered user empowerment and protection on decentralised services, implications for moderation, the role of volunteer moderators, and the burden of navigating regulations, such as the EU Digital Services Act and the UK Online Safety Act, that were written with centralised services in mind.

This session dag into how decentralized platforms can effectively scale their T&S operations while honoring the principle of user autonomy of their design. We explored how moderation tools work on distributed networks, discussed how communities can share resources to tackle illegal and harmful content, and highlighted strategies for aligning governance with wider legal obligations. Attendees gained fresh insights into what successful T&S looks like in a world where the power - and decision-making - are decentralized.

Our takeaways:

1. Lean Teams, Nimble Solutions: Decentralized platforms must do more with less, requiring small Trust & Safety teams to be especially agile and inventive in order to keep up with both scaling user bases and tightening regulatory demands.

2. Trust & Safety by Design: Making Trust & Safety a foundational element from day one is crucial for decentralized platforms, serving both to attract and retain users and to confront the persistent, complex moderation challenges that come with decentralization.

3. Safety as the Foundation for Growth: The ability of decentralized platforms to scale and gain user trust is inseparable from their commitment to creating safe, well-moderated environments; effective Trust & Safety is not optional, but vital to their legitimacy and success.

In more than 50 countries there are regulatory sandboxes in operation in fields such as fintech, healthcare and AI. This workshop's organizers are developing the first regulatory sandbox for child online safety. We introduced at TrustCon to introduce and simulate the concept – in effect, sandbox the sandbox –so we can draw in wisdom from the Trust and Safety field.

We argue that this sandbox – offering regulatory reprieve for regulated services to engage not only with regulators but also with youth and other experts – can improve child online safety by affording the kind of collective understanding never possible through public awareness-raising, lobbying and legislative hearings. The sandbox’s aim is informed, workable regulation.