Policy details

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Policy Rationale

In an effort to disrupt and prevent harm, we remove content that facilitates or coordinates the exploitation of humans, including human trafficking. We define human trafficking as the business of depriving someone of liberty for profit. It is the exploitation of humans in order to force them to engage in commercial sex, labor, or other activities against their will. It relies on deception, force, and coercion, and degrades humans by depriving them of their freedom while economically or materially benefiting others.

Human trafficking is multi-faceted and global; it can affect anyone regardless of age, socioeconomic background, ethnicity, gender, or location. It takes many forms, and any given trafficking situation can involve various stages of development. Due to the coercive nature of this abuse, victims cannot consent.

While we need to be careful not to conflate human trafficking and smuggling, they can be related and exhibit overlap. The United Nations defines human smuggling as the procurement or facilitation of illegal entry into a state across international borders. Without necessity for coercion or force, it may still result in the exploitation of vulnerable individuals who are trying to leave their country of origin, often in pursuit of a better life. Human smuggling is a crime against a state, relying on movement, and human trafficking is a crime against a person, relying on exploitation.

In addition to content condemning, raising awareness about, or news reporting on human trafficking or human smuggling issues, we allow content asking for or sharing information about personal safety and border crossing, seeking asylum or how to leave a country.

Do not post:

Content that recruits people for, facilitates or exploits people through any of the following forms of human trafficking:

  • Sex trafficking (any commercial sexual activity with a minor or any commercial sexual activity with an adult involving force, fraud, or coercion)
  • Sales of children or illegal adoption
  • Orphanage trafficking and orphanage volun-tourism
  • Forced marriages
  • Labor exploitation (including bonded labor)
  • Domestic servitude
  • Non-regenerative organ trafficking not including organ removal, donation, or transplant in a non-exploitative organ donation context
  • Forced criminal activity (e.g. forced begging, forced drug trafficking)
  • Recruitment of child soldiers

Content where a third party actor recruits for, facilitates or benefits from (financially or otherwise) commercial sexual activity

Content that offers to provide or facilitate human smuggling

Content that asks for human smuggling services

We allow content that is otherwise covered by this policy when posted in condemnation, educational, awareness raising, or news reporting contexts.

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User experiences

See some examples of what enforcement looks like for people on Facebook, such as: what it looks like to report something you don’t think should be on Facebook, to be told you’ve violated our Community Standards and to see a warning screen over certain content.

Note: We’re always improving, so what you see here may be slightly outdated compared to what we currently use.

Reporting
1
Universal entry point

We have an option to report, whether it’s on a post, a comment, a story, a message or something else.

2
Get started

We help people report things that they don’t think should be on our platform.

3
Select a problem

We ask people to tell us more about what’s wrong. This helps us send the report to the right place.

4
Report submitted

After these steps, we submit the report. We also lay out what people should expect next.

Post-report communication
1
Update via notifications

After we’ve reviewed the report, we’ll send the reporting user a notification.

2
More detail in the Support Inbox

We’ll share more details about our review decision in the Support Inbox. We’ll notify people that this information is there and send them a link to it.

3
Appeal option

If people think we got the decision wrong, they can request another review.

4
Post-appeal communication

We’ll send a final response after we’ve re-reviewed the content, again to the Support Inbox.

Takedown experience
1
Immediate notification

When someone posts something that doesn't follow our rules, we’ll tell them.

2
Additional context

We’ll also address common misperceptions and explain why we made the decision to enforce.

3
Policy Explanation

We’ll give people easy-to-understand explanations about the relevant rule.

4
Option for review

If people disagree with the decision, they can ask for another review and provide more information.

5
Final decision

We set expectations about what will happen after the review has been submitted.

Warning screens
1
Warning screens in context

We cover certain content in News Feed and other surfaces, so people can choose whether to see it.

2
More information

In this example, we give more context on why we’ve covered the photo with more context from independent fact-checkers

Enforcement

We have the same policies around the world, for everyone on Facebook.

Review teams

Our global team of over 15,000 reviewers work every day to keep people on Facebook safe.

Stakeholder engagement

Outside experts, academics, NGOs and policymakers help inform the Facebook Community Standards.

Get help with human exploitation

Learn what you can do if you see something on Facebook that goes against our Community Standards.