Statement of reasons

A statement of reasons is the explanation a platform must send to a user whenever it restricts their content or account. Under Article 17 of the Digital Services Act, any time you remove, demote, age-restrict, disable or suspend user-generated content, you owe the affected person a clear, specific account of why the decision was taken and how they can contest it.

This is the user-facing counterpart of moderation. Where a notice-and-action process governs how illegal or harmful content is flagged and assessed, the statement of reasons closes the loop : it tells the person on the receiving end what happened to their comment and on what basis.

What a good statement of reasons contains

A compliant statement of reasons must include :

• The decision taken : removal, restriction of visibility, age restriction, account suspension.
• The ground : whether the content was deemed illegal, or incompatible with the platform’s terms and conditions, and which specific clause applies.
• The facts and circumstances relied on, and whether automated means were used to detect or decide.
• The redress options : internal complaint mechanism, out-of-court dispute settlement, and judicial remedy.

Article 17 is distinct from Article 24, which governs annual transparency reports. Article 17 is about the individual explanation owed to a single affected user, not aggregate statistics.

How Logora handles it

Every automated moderation decision in Logora generates a statement of reasons aligned with Article 17. The system maps each rejection to one of six rejection grounds and surfaces the applicable redress path to the user, so the explanation is consistent, specific and contestable rather than a generic “your comment was removed”.

See DSA overview, DSA Article 14, notice-and-action and transparency report.