Policy details

Change log

CHANGE LOG

Change log

Today

Current version

Jan 26, 2023
Sep 29, 2022
May 4, 2022
Apr 28, 2022
Feb 24, 2022
Jan 27, 2022
Feb 5, 2021
Jan 28, 2021
Nov 18, 2020
Sep 3, 2020
Aug 27, 2020
Jun 26, 2020
Dec 16, 2019
Nov 30, 2019

Policy Rationale

In an effort to prevent and disrupt offline harm and copycat behavior, we prohibit people from facilitating, organizing, promoting or admitting to certain criminal or harmful activities targeted at people, businesses, property or animals. We allow people to debate and advocate for the legality of criminal and harmful activities, as well as draw attention to harmful or criminal activity that they may witness or experience as long as they do not advocate for or coordinate harm.

Do not post content that falls into the following categories:

Harm against people

  • Outing:
  • Content that exposes the identity or locations affiliated with anyone who is alleged to:
  • Be a member of an outing-risk group; and/or
  • Share familial and/or romantic relationships with a member(s) of an outing-risk group; and/or
  • Have performed professional activities in support of an outing-risk group (except for political figures)
  • Content that exposes the undercover status of law enforcement, military, or security personnel if:
  • The content contains the agent’s full name or other explicit identification and explicitly mentions their undercover status.
  • The imagery identifies the faces of the law enforcement personnel and explicitly mentions their undercover status.
  • Swatting, specifically statements of intent, calls to action, representing, supporting, advocating for, depicting, admitting to or speaking positively about it.
  • Depicting, promoting, advocating for or encouraging participation in a high-risk viral challenge.

Harm against animals

Coordinating (statements of intent, calls to action, representing, supporting or advocacy), or depicting, admitting to or promoting acts of physical harm against animals committed by you or your associates except in cases of:

  • Redemption
  • Hunting or fishing
  • Religious sacrifice
  • Food preparation or processing
  • Pests or vermin
  • Mercy killing
  • Survival or defense of self, another human or another animal
  • Bullfighting

Coordinating (statements of intent, calls to action, representing, supporting or advocacy) or depicting, admitting to or promoting staged animal vs. animal fights.

Depicting video imagery of fake animal rescues

Harm against property

Statements of intent, calls to action, representing, supporting or advocating for harm against property that depicts, admits to, or promotes the following acts committed by you or your associates:

  • Vandalism.
  • Hacking when the intent is to hijack a domain, corrupt or disrupt cyber systems, seek ransoms or gain unauthorized access to data systems.
  • Theft when committed by you or your associates, as well as positive statements about theft when committed by a third party.

Voter and/or census fraud

  • Offers to buy or sell votes with cash or gifts
  • Statements that advocate, provide instructions, or show explicit intent to illegally participate in a voting or census process

For the following content, we include a label so that people are aware the content may be sensitive:

  • Imagery depicting a high-risk viral challenge if shared with a caption that condemns or raises awareness of the associated risks.

For the following Community Standards, we require additional information and/or context to enforce:

Do not post:

  • Content that puts LGBTQI+ people at risk by revealing their sexual identity against their will or without permission.
  • Content that puts unveiled women at risk by revealing their images without veil against their will or without permission.
  • Content that puts non-convicted individuals at risk by revealing their identity and their status as a target of a sting operation as a sexual predator.
  • Content revealing the identity of someone as a witness, informant, activist or individuals whose identity or involvement in a legal case has been restricted from public disclosure
  • Content that puts a defector at risk by outing the individual with personally identifiable information when the content is reported by credible government channels.
  • Imagery that is likely to deceive the public as to its origin if:
    • The entity depicted or an authorized representative objects to the imagery, and
    • The imagery has the potential to cause harm to members of the public.
  • Calls for coordinated interference that would affect an individual’s ability to participate in an official census or election.
  • Content stating that census or voting participation may or will result in law enforcement consequences (for example, arrest, deport or imprisonment).
  • Statements of intent, support or advocacy to go to an election site, voting location, or vote counting location when the purpose of going to the site is to monitor or watch voters or election officials’ activity using militaristic language (e.g. “war,” “army,” or “soldier” ) or an expressed goal to intimidate, exert control or display power (e.g. “Let’s show them who's boss!,” “If they’re scared, they won’t vote!”).
  • Content that reveals the identity or location of a Prisoner of War in the context of an armed conflict by sharing their name, identification number and/or imagery
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 violates our Community Standards, we’ll tell them.

2
Additional context

We’ll also address common misperceptions around enforcement.

3
Explain the policy

We’ll give people easy to understand explanations about why their content was removed.

4
Ask for input

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.

5
Tell us more

If people disagree with the decision, we’ll ask them to tell us more.

6
Set expectations

Here, we set expectations on what will happen next.

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 coordinating harm and promoting crime

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