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If Instagram disabled or suspended your account, appeal first from the notice you see when you log in. If Instagram upholds the decision, Article 21 of the Digital Services Act allows an independent review: ODS, run by ADR Center (certified by AGCOM, Resolution 501/24/CONS), is free, rules on admissibility within 10 days and decides within 90, without binding either side.
ADR Center: out-of-court dispute settlement body certified by AGCOM under Article 21 of the DSA, Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.
For a disabled Instagram account, the way to reach Instagram is the notice itself. Instagram's Help Center says that if you think your account was disabled by mistake, you may be able to ask Instagram to review the decision by logging in and following the on-screen instructions (About disabled Instagram accounts). If you log in and see no disabled message, the problem may be something else, such as a login issue or a hacked account. For those cases Meta runs an Account Recovery Hub, which also points to a support assistant inside the app and warns about emails or messages that pretend to be Meta. ODS is not part of Instagram or Meta: it is not a help desk, it cannot log into your account and it cannot restore it. It comes in later, once Instagram has answered your appeal.
If Instagram reviews your appeal and keeps the account disabled, EU law gives you one more route. Article 21 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, the Digital Services Act, lets anyone affected by a decision on their account choose a certified dispute settlement body to review it. Instagram's Help Center describes these bodies as independent, certified experts that are not part of Instagram, so you file the dispute on the body's own website. ODS is run by ADR Center, a body certified by AGCOM, Italy's Digital Services Coordinator, under Resolution 501/24/CONS, and it handles cases in 16 languages, English included. To get ready, find the message Instagram sent about its decision in your notifications, your email or Account Status, and look for "Information for people in the EU". There Instagram lets you create a reference number starting with "IG", which a dispute settlement body uses to request information about the decision (How dispute settlement bodies work in the EU for Instagram).
Yes. Opening a case with ODS about a disabled or suspended Instagram account costs you nothing, and the form asks for no payment at any point. That is not a special offer. Article 21 of the Digital Services Act requires the procedure to be free of charge for users, or available at a nominal fee, and it charges the dispute settlement body's fees to the platform, here Instagram. If the decision goes Instagram's way, you do not have to reimburse Instagram's costs unless the body finds you acted in manifest bad faith. Instagram's Help Center notes that a body might collect a processing fee; ODS does not. The fact that the platform pays does not put ODS on Instagram's side. To be certified, a body must be impartial and independent, financially too, of both Instagram and its users, and the people who decide must be paid in a way that does not depend on how the case ends.
Once your file is complete, ODS decides within 10 days whether the Instagram case is admissible. The decision on the merits comes within 90 days, the deadline set by Article 21 of the Digital Services Act, which allows an extension for highly complex disputes. The case is decided by independent experts, who give reasons for their view. The decision is not binding: the Act says a certified body "shall not have the power to impose a binding settlement of the dispute on the parties". That applies to Instagram, which its own Help Center says must consider the body's opinion but is not legally required to follow it, and it applies to you, since you are free not to accept it. Both sides must still take part in good faith. Asking for a review takes nothing away from you: Article 21 keeps your right to challenge Instagram's decision before a court at any stage.
Before opening a case about a disabled or suspended Instagram account, you need to have appealed to Instagram first, because ODS steps in after the platform's internal complaint. The ODS form then asks for the platform and the reason, your country of residence in the EU, a description of what happened, the date you appealed to Instagram and the reply you got, the reference code if Instagram gave you one, and your account details: username, the email you use on Instagram and, if there is one, the link to your profile. You can attach screenshots of the notice and the emails you received. You also add your contact details and the language you want to hear from us in. Finally, you confirm that the information is true and that no other dispute settlement body is already handling the same decision. After you submit, we email you a link to confirm the request.
ADR Center: out-of-court dispute settlement body certified by AGCOM under Article 21 of the DSA, Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.
Last updated: 28 September 2026
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