Statement of Reasons (SoR)

What Statement of Reasons (SoR) means

A Statement of Reasons (SoR) is the standardized record that Very Large Online Platforms and Very Large Online Search Engines must produce for every content-moderation decision they take affecting users in the EU, under Article 17 of the EU Digital Services Act. Each SoR documents: the specific content acted upon, the action taken (removal, demotion, monetization restriction, account suspension), the legal or terms-of-service basis cited, the territorial scope of the decision, whether the decision was automated or human-reviewed, the redress mechanisms available, and a timestamp. Under DSA Article 24(5), each SoR must also be submitted to the DSA Transparency Database in near real time, where it becomes publicly accessible under a CC BY 4.0 license. The SoR mechanism creates a permanent, queryable audit trail of platform enforcement — enabling researchers, journalists, regulators, and compliance teams to detect enforcement patterns, sectoral spikes, and cross-platform inconsistencies. AuditSocials ingests the full SoR feed daily to power the enforcement tracker.