Policies that outline what is and isn't allowed on the Facebook app.
Policies for ad content and business assets.
Other policies that apply to Meta technologies.
How we update our policies, measure results, work with others and more.
How we help prevent interference, empower people to vote and more.
How we work with independent fact-checkers, and more, to identify and take action on misinformation.
How we assess content for newsworthiness.
How we reduce problematic content in News Feed.
Quarterly report on how well we're doing at enforcing our policies in the Facebook app and on Instagram.
Report on how well we're helping people protect their intellectual property.
Report on government request for people's data.
Report on when we restrict content that's reported to us as violating local law.
Report on intentional Internet restrictions that limit people's ability to access the Internet.
Quarterly report on what people see on Facebook, including the content that receives the widest distribution during the quarter.
Download current and past regulatory reports for Facebook and Instagram.
Change log
Change log
Current version
In an effort to prevent and disrupt real-world harm, we do not allow organisations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on Facebook. We assess these entities based on their behaviour both online and offline – most significantly, their ties to violence. Under this policy, we designate individuals, organisations and networks of people. These designations are divided into three tiers that indicate the level of content enforcement, with Tier 1 resulting in the most extensive enforcement because we believe that these entities have the most direct ties to offline harm.
Tier 1 focuses on entities that engage in serious offline harm – including organising or advocating for violence against civilians, repeatedly dehumanising or advocating for harm against people based on protected characteristics, or engaging in systematic criminal operations. Tier 1 entities include terrorist, hate and criminal organisations. We remove praise, substantive support and representation of Tier 1 entities, as well as their leaders, founders or prominent members. Tier 1 includes hate organisations, criminal organisations, including those designated by the United States government as specially designated narcotics trafficking kingpins (SDNTKs), and terrorist organisations, including entities and individuals designated by the United States government as foreign terrorist organisations (FTOs) or specially designated global terrorists (SDGTs). We remove praise, substantive support and representation of Tier 1 entities, as well as their leaders, founders or prominent members.
In addition, we do not allow content that praises, substantively supports or represents events that Facebook designates as violating violent events – including terrorist attacks, hate events, multiple-victim violence or attempted multiple-victim violence, multiple murders or hate crimes. Nor do we allow praise, substantive support or representation of the perpetrator(s) of such attacks. We also remove content that praises, substantively supports or represents ideologies that promote hate, such as nazism and white supremacy.
Tier 2 focuses on entities that engage in violence against state or military actors, but do not generally target civilians – what we call "violent non-state actors". We remove all substantive support and representation of these entities, their leaders and their prominent members. We remove any praise of these groups' violent activities.
Tier 3 focuses on entities that may repeatedly engage in violations of our Hate Speech or Dangerous Organisations Policies on or off the platform, or demonstrate strong intent to engage in offline violence in the near future, but have not necessarily engaged in violence to date or advocated for violence against others based on their protected characteristics. This includes militarised social movements, violence-inducing conspiracy networks, and individuals and groups banned for promoting hatred. Tier 3 entities may not have a presence, or coordinate on our platforms.
We recognise that users may share content that includes references to designated dangerous organisations and individuals to report on, condemn or neutrally discuss them or their activities. Our policies are designed to allow room for these types of discussions while simultaneously limiting risks of potential offline harm. We thus require people to clearly indicate their intent when creating or sharing such content. If a user's intention is ambiguous or unclear, we default to removing content.
In line with international human rights law, our policies allow discussions about the human rights of designated individuals or members of designated dangerous entities, unless the content includes other praise, substantive support or representation of designated entities or other policy violations, such as incitement to violence.
Please see our Corporate Human Rights Policy for more information about our commitment to internationally recognised human rights.
We remove praise, substantive support and representation of various dangerous organisations. These concepts apply to the organisations themselves, their activities and their members. These concepts do not proscribe peaceful advocacy for particular political outcomes.
Praise, defined as any of the below:
We remove praise of Tier 1 entities and designated events. We will also remove praise of violence carried out by Tier 2 entities.
Substantive support, defined as any of the below:
We remove substantive support of Tier 1 and Tier 2 entities and designated events.
Representation, defined as any of the below:
We remove representation of Tier 1 and 2 designated organisations, hate-banned entities and designated events.
Tier 1: Terrorism, organised hate, large-scale criminal activity, attempted multiple-victim violence, multiple victim violence, multiple murders and violating violent events
We do not allow individuals or organisations involved in organised crime, including those designated by the United States government as specially designated narcotics trafficking kingpins (SDNTKs); hate; or terrorism, including entities designated by the United States government as foreign terrorist organisations (FTOs) or specially designated global terrorists (SDGTs), to have a presence on the platform. We also don't allow other people to represent these entities. We do not allow leaders or prominent members of these organisations to have a presence on the platform, symbols that represent them to be used on the platform or content that praises them or their acts. In addition, we remove any coordination of substantive support for these individuals and organisations.
We do not allow content that praises, substantively supports or represents events that Meta designates as terrorist attacks, hate events, multiple-victim violence or attempted multiple-victim violence, serial murders, hate crimes or violating violent events.
We also do not allow praise, substantive support or representation of designated hateful ideologies.
Terrorist organisations and individuals, defined as a non-state actor that:
Hate organisations, defined as an association of three or more people that:
Criminal organisations, defined as an association of three or more people that:
Multiple-victim violence and multiple murders
Hateful ideologies
Tier 2: Violent non-state actors
Organisations and individuals designated by Meta as violent non-state actors are not allowed to have a presence on Facebook, or have a presence maintained by others on their behalf. As these communities are actively engaged in violence, substantive support of these entities is similarly not allowed. We will also remove praise of violence carried out by these entities.
Violent non-state actors, defined as any non-state actor that:
Tier 3: Militarised social movements, violence-inducing conspiracy networks and hate banned entities
Pages, Communities, Events and Profiles or other Facebook entities that are, or claim to be – maintained by, or on behalf of, militarised social movements and violence-inducing conspiracy networks are prohibited. Admins of these pages, communities and events will also be removed.
Click here to read more about how we address movements and organisations tied to violence.
We do not allow representation of organisations and individuals designated by Meta as hate-banned entities.
Militarised social movements (MSMs), which include:
Violence-inducing conspiracy networks (VICNs), defined as a non-state actor that:
Hate-banned entities, defined as entities that engage in repeated hateful conduct or rhetoric, but do not rise to the level of a Tier 1 entity because they have not engaged in or explicitly advocated for violence, or because they lack sufficient connections to previously designated organisations or figures.
See some examples of what enforcement looks like for people on Facebook, such as: what it looks like to report something that you don't think should be on Facebook, to be told that 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.
Percentage of times that people saw violating content
Number of pieces of violating content that we took action on
Percentage of violating content that we found before people reported it
Number of pieces of content that people appealed after we took action on it
Number of pieces of content that we restored after we originally took action on it
Percentage of times that people saw violating content
Number of pieces of violating content that we took action on
Percentage of violating content that we found before people reported it
Number of pieces of content that people appealed after we took action on it
Number of pieces of content that we restored after we originally took action on it
We have an option to report, whether it's on a post, a comment, a story, a message or something else.
We help people report things that they don't think should be on our platform.
We ask people to tell us more about what's wrong. This helps us send the report to the right place.
After these steps, we submit the report. We also lay out what people should expect next.
After we've reviewed the report, we'll send the reporting user a notification.
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.
If people think we made the wrong decision, they can request another review.
We'll send a final response after we've re-reviewed the content, again to the Support Inbox.
When someone posts something that violates our Community Standards, we'll tell them.
We'll also address common misperceptions around enforcement.
We'll give people easy-to-understand explanations about why their content was removed.
After we've established the context for our decision and explained our policy, we'll ask people what they'd like to do next, including letting us know if they think we made a mistake.
If people disagree with the decision, we'll ask them to tell us more.
Here, we set expectations on what will happen next.
We have the same policies around the world, for everyone on Facebook.
Our global team of over 15,000 reviewers work every day to keep people on Facebook safe.
Outside experts, academics, NGOs and policymakers help inform the Facebook Community Standards.
Learn what you can do if you see something on Facebook that goes against our Community Standards.