Description du cas
The Oversight Board will address the two cases below together, choosing either to uphold or overturn Meta’s decisions on a case-by-case basis.
The Board has selected two cases involving advertising pets on Facebook. In the first case, an administrator of a Facebook page posted a short video in March 2025 showing two puppies in a pen with a caption stating the breed of the puppies. The same words are repeated in text overlaying the video together with an Instagram handle. The public page where the content was shared states that the user is a specialist dog breeder. The post was viewed fewer than 10 times.
In the second case, a Facebook user, who describes themselves as a “digital creator” on their profile, in March 2025 made a post containing six videos of puppies for sale on their public profile timeline. The post states that the user is “looking for furparents” and states that they have six pure-breed puppies “open for reservation.” The user lists some medical information about the puppies, their date of birth, their location, and when they are available. There is no mention of price or money changing hands, but users are invited to message for more details. The six videos each show one of the puppies, introducing them by name. The post was viewed fewer than 5,000 times.
Both posts were identified by Meta’s classifiers and removed from the platform for violating Meta’s Restricted Goods and Services Community Standard. That policy prohibits content “that attempts to buy, sell or trade live non-endangered animals” unless it falls into a number of stated exceptions. One of those exceptions allows content “posted by a Page, group or Instagram profile representing legitimate brick-and-mortar entities, including retail businesses, legitimate websites, brands or rehoming shelters, or a private individual sharing content on behalf of legitimate brick-and-mortar entities.” The users in both cases appealed Meta’s removal of their content and, after Meta upheld its decisions, both users appealed to the Board.
After the Board selected the first case, Meta determined that it should not have removed the content and restored it to the platform as the post did not indicate a sale and, even if it did, there were signs that the page is associated with a brick and mortar entity. Meta identified those signs as the page providing “a business name and address for a physical location, a link to a business website, a business email address, and the business's opening and closing hours.”
Meta maintained the removal of the content in the second case. The company explained that the statement that the puppies were “open for reservation” and the call to “reserve yours now” explicitly advertised that the puppies were for sale and an analysis of the user’s profile showed no affiliation to a breeder or legitimate pet store. Meta noted that it distinguishes between sales by brick-and-mortar entities and peer-to-peer sales by individuals “to strike a balance between enabling legitimate commerce and protecting both animals and users from potential harm associated with unregulated sales.”
In their statement to the Board the user in the first case noted that posts advertising puppies for sale were very common on Facebook. The user in the second case acknowledged that that they were trying to sell the puppies outside of Facebook. They explained that they were trying to do so in a safe and responsible manner, and their post attempted to share relevant information. The user noted that sharing this sort of information on Facebook is valuable to people trying to facilitate the ethical adoption of pets.
The Board would appreciate public comments that address:
- Animal welfare concerns arising from the sale of pets on social media platforms, especially animals that appear to be bred for sale.
- The impact on small businesses of Meta’s requirement that animal sales are linked to “legitimate brick-and-mortar entities, including retail businesses, legitimate websites, brands or rehoming shelters, or a private individual sharing content on behalf of legitimate brick-and-mortar entities.”
- The prevalence of scams involving the sale of animals on social media.
- How Meta’s Restricted Goods and Services policy impacts small businesses.
In its decisions, the Board can issue policy recommendations to Meta. While recommendations are not binding, Meta must respond to them within 60 days. As such, the Board welcomes public comments proposing recommendations that are relevant to these cases.
Public Comments
If you or your organization feel you can contribute valuable perspectives that can help with reaching a decision on the cases announced today, you can submit your contributions using the button below. Please note that public comments can be provided anonymously. The public comment window is open for 14 days, closing at 23.59 Pacific Standard Time (PST) on Wednesday 27 August.
What’s Next
Over the next few weeks, Board Members will be deliberating these cases. Once they have reached their decision, we will post it on the Decisions page.
Commentaires
Please provide a way for legally authorized sellers to share information online. (We agree auth efforts to control and remind the illegal ones.) Individuals southland also be able to share information about dogs or go through an approved agency (that may not first require the animal be "fixed") to do so. Thank you.
I have submitted countless post to the oversight board. I am a brick and mortar business, I have already had my page removed and was able to submit an appeal and provide business information to keep my page active. Around November meta AI went rogue and started flagging a bunch of my posts. Some of them dated back 10 years or more, well before the pet rule was even implemented.
Since then my account has been restricted, I lost my monetization which had just started taking off. From there I can't suggest my page either. The bigger blow to all of this is that the moment meta made all these moves and notified me that my page would not be recommended and I cannot invite people and that I would get less views, they also decided to blatantly flaunt in front of me countless puppy ads from other breeders that were not brick and mortar businesses. And then of course when I go on to Marketplace I see sponsored listings of puppy ads left and right. Meta is willing to let any person advertise puppies as long as they pay and do a sponsored listing. So it seems like it's not really about policy, and does Fringe on discriminating towards breeders.
The AI is extremely flawed, here's a very good example. After all these posts were flagged, about 9 out of 10 were restored. But unfortunately enough were not restored to where my account got restricted. A good example of how unpredictable and wrong it is, I posted a picture of a puppy and just said he was the last one from his litter. I did not reference anything about being available or for sale. Within minutes it was flagged by meta AI as violating policy. I submitted an appeal and within about a half hour meta deemed that post did not violate it's policy and restored it. I shared the exact same post after it was restored on to my stories. That one was flagged by meta ai. I appealed that one and it was not reversed. Clearly the AI is not working well.
I estimate since November of last year I lost out on the potential of a few thousand dollars. This is going off the fact that I just started getting monetized and within a couple months got well over $500 when they decided to restrict my account. On top of this because I haven't been able to do invites and because of restrictions I watched my page lose well over 1,000 followers in the coming months.
I also want to add, I am a paying customer. I have paid for sponsored listings in the past. What bothers me is that there's a clear line of you can violate policies even if you're not a brick and mortar business as long as you're willing to pay. This is very unethical and Shady
The oversight board can look up my appeals, I believe there was well over 10 of them all in the course of the same few days. None of them have been approved and my account is still restricted
I believe no animals should be offered for sale, loan, as a gift or to swap by ANYONE on Facebook.
There are groups promoting sale or loan of animals in Facebook. But Meta does nothing when they are reported.
Individuals set up fake accounts pretending to be businesses to get round the Meta "no private sales" rule. It's a mockery and ridiculous.
I write as Head of Central Social Science Team, Gateshead Civil Service, United Kingdom.
Commercial posts that use images of puppies to imply availability for sale are spreading rapidly across the platform. Evidence from our local safeguarding partnerships shows that these posts often originate from unlicensed breeders or large-scale trafficking networks. They routinely:
• omit legally required licence numbers;
• misrepresent the age, breed, and health status of animals;
• direct users to encrypted messaging apps where payments are taken without consumer protections;
• and expose both animals and purchasers to welfare and safety risks.
Current enforcement appears reactive and piecemeal. We recommend the following minimum platform-level measures:
Mandatory “Animal Sales” declaration category.
Any post offering dogs or puppies must select this category and supply a verifiable government licence number. Posts lacking these elements should be auto-suppressed pending review.
Proactive detection.
Expand image-matching and keyword classifiers to flag new accounts that reuse stock puppy photographs or phrases such as “ready now,” “depósito,” “shipping available worldwide.”
Friction for new sellers.
Impose a 14-day cooling-off period before first-time animal-sale listings are published, during which automated and manual checks are completed.
Visible consumer warnings.
Overlay all detected or reported animal-sale posts with an interstitial warning that reminds users to verify licences, insist on in-person viewing, and never pay via gift cards or cryptocurrency.
Rapid escalation path for law enforcement.
Create a dedicated portal for recognised animal-welfare agencies to request account data and IP information under clearly defined legal process, with a 48-hour response SLA.
These steps are proportionate, technically feasible, and consistent with Meta’s existing commerce policies on regulated goods. They would materially reduce the visibility of illicit puppy sales and strengthen consumer and animal protection across the platform.
Respectfully submitted,
Abdulla Walli
Head of Central Social Science Team
I am submitting this as a user of social media, a former animal shelter volunteer, and a person who has been learning from legitimate news outlets and law enforcement postings about issues of online animal abuse. Allowing the sale of pets on social media platforms invites abuse of animals and enables scamming of potential buyers. Social media sites cannot determine whether an animal has been responsibly bred, whether it has been trafficked from another country, or has been stolen from its original owner. Given the well-known problem of groups that post videos showing torture of puppies, kittens, and other animals commonly kept as pets on social media platforms, including on Facebook, I think sale of pets and other animals on social media should be completely banned. Social media platforms should not allow sale of animals because it can inadvertently help provide victims for online torture and abuse. In addition, Facebook has no way to reliably determine whether sellers are ethically conducting breeding and sale of animals. Not only are living beings put at risk of harm through social media sales, consumers are at risk for purchasing animals with veterinary medical issues and behavior problems. While animals purchased through brick and mortar stores can have health and behavioral problems too, consumers usually have legal protections to resolve disputes over animals sold sick or with behavioral problems. Consumers who purchase pets through social media are also at risk of being scammed by bait and switch sales where they do not receive the animal they think they purchased or they simply receive nothing and lose their money. Bait and switch and failure to provide purchased products are already problems encountered when purchasing non-living products on social media. Last, responsible sellers and breeders of pets have other means of advertising. I don’t believe small businesses —by which I assume you mean low volume breeders without a brick and mortar store—require or are entitled access to any social media platforms to conduct sales. Legitimate small breeders who value the welfare of their animals will not demand access. Puppy mills may. Meta’s first priority should be the welfare of living beings offered for sale on its platforms. A complete ban on sales would eliminate any concern about disadvantage to small breeders and businesses. If sales continue to be allowed, Facebook’s current rules seem fairly reasonable and should not be relaxed. Thank you for reviewing this important issue.