Graphic Videos From Iran

Summary decisions examine cases in which Meta has reversed its original decision on a piece of content after the Board brought it to the company’s attention and include information about Meta’s acknowledged errors. They are approved by a Board Member panel, rather than the full Board, do not involve public comments and do not have precedential value for the Board. Summary decisions directly bring about changes to Meta’s decisions, providing transparency on these corrections, while identifying where Meta could improve its enforcement.

Summary

Two users appealed Meta’s decisions to remove videos posted on Instagram, which depicted graphic content from Iran in awareness-raising contexts, during nationwide anti-government protests. After the Board brought the appeals to Meta’s attention, the company reversed its original decisions and restored both posts.

About the Cases

In the first case, an Instagram user posted a video depicting severely injured and presumably deceased individuals, accompanied by a caption in Farsi stating: “WARNING: This video contains distressing scenes that may not be suitable for all viewers.” The caption says the footage depicts a hospital in Iran's capital, Tehran, on January 8, 2026. It adds that the “harrowing images” show the situation in the country, which was undergoing widespread demonstrations calling for the end of the ruling system. The user emphasizes that what the footage shows “cannot be dismissed simply as ‘accidents,’” but a violation of human dignity. In their appeal to the Board, the user described themselves as a “professional journalist dedicated to documenting the ongoing crimes against humanity committed by the Islamic Republic’s regime.” The user qualified the post as “evidence of state-sponsored atrocities” and “records of a massacre.” They further claimed that Meta is “actively obstructing the documentation of international crimes and aiding in the erasure of history.”

In the second case, a different Instagram user shared another video showing severely injured and presumably deceased individuals, accompanied by a caption stating, in Farsi: “This video contains scenes that may be disturbing to some viewers.” The caption says the footage depicts the morgues of Mashhad, a city in Iran's northeast, and adds that it reveals the “true scale of the tragedy” that occurred on January 9, 2026. In their appeal to the Board, the user said that their post aims to raise awareness “for those who are looking for their loved one’s corpse,” to help them find the deceased, noting that the videos originated from a morgue.

Both posts were published in February 2026, following protests across Iran in December 2025 and January 2026. In response to these protests, authorities initiated a violent crackdown and, starting on January 8, 2026, suspended internet access. The human rights organization Amnesty International reported that security forces employed lethal force, including the use of firearms and weapons prohibited under international law, against protesters, which resulted in numerous fatalities and serious injuries.

Under the Violent and Graphic Content policy, Meta prohibits “videos of people, living or deceased, in non-medical contexts, depicting [...] visible innards, such as exposed organs, bones or muscle tissue on living or deceased persons; burning or charred persons; or throat-slitting.” However, the policy does “recognize that users may share content in order to shed light on or condemn acts such as human rights abuses or armed conflict.” The policies consider when content was shared in this context and “allow room for discussion and awareness-raising accordingly.”

After the Board brought these cases to Meta’s attention, the company determined that it had incorrectly removed both posts. The company explained that, under the Violent and Graphic Content policy, Meta does not allow “videos of dismemberment and visible innards in non-medical contexts.” The company highlighted, however, that its policy allows room for “discussion and awareness-raising,” and that both posts included language to that effect. It also noted that, in both cases, the bodies are wrapped in bags in a medical setting. Consequently, Meta restored both pieces of content, placing them behind a warning screen and restricting their visibility to people above 18-years-old only, which is the company’s approach to graphic videos depicting dismemberment or innards in a medical context.

Board Authority and Scope

The Board has authority to review Meta’s decision following an appeal from the user whose content was removed (Charter Article 2, Section 1; Bylaws Article 3, Section 1).

When Meta acknowledges it made an error and reverses its decision in a case under consideration for Board review, the Board may select that case for a summary decision (Bylaws Article 2, Section 2.1.3). The Board reviews the original decision to increase understanding of the content moderation process, reduce errors and increase fairness for Facebook, Instagram and Threads users.

Significance of Cases

These bundled cases provide additional examples of the overenforcement of Meta’s Violent and Graphic Content Community Standard, particularly in the context of efforts to document and spread awareness of human rights abuses. Despite the policy allowing users to share content that sheds light on or condemns “human rights abuses or armed conflict,” the company continues to remove content that aims to do so. These cases evidence that Meta’s enforcement errors may impact the ability of journalists to report on atrocities and the ability of people to identify victims in real time. Such errors may also erase evidence of human rights abuses in a context of government-imposed information blackouts. Much of the value of such posts arises in the hours and days after the events depicted, such that even if wrongful removals are later restored on escalation, the information sharing and documentation functions that Meta intends to permit are impaired. Amid violent conflict, such delays are of particular concern.

The Board has issued recommendations to guide Meta in its enforcement of graphic content shared in awareness-raising contexts.

In the Sudan Graphic Video decision, the Board recommended that “Meta should amend the Violent and Graphic Content Community Standard to allow videos of people or dead bodies when shared for the purpose of raising awareness of or documenting human rights abuses. This content should be allowed with a warning screen so that people are aware that content may be disturbing” ( Sudan Graphic Video, recommendation no. 1). The Board considers this recommendation to have been reframed by Meta. The company stated, “we invited the Board to attend a Policy Forum related to this recommendation [...] Ultimately, given the feedback received during this policy development, we aligned on the status quo policy to remove content by default, but allow content with a warning label when there is additional context. While this does not amend the Community Standard to allow videos of people or dead bodies when shared for the purposes of raising awareness of or documenting human rights abuses at scale, it does continue to allow this content to be assessed upon escalation” (Meta’s Q4 2023 Quarterly Update on the Oversight Board).

In another decision, the Board recommended that “Meta should commit to preserving, and where appropriate, sharing with competent authorities evidence of atrocity crimes or grave human rights violations, such as those specified in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, by updating its internal policies to make clear the protocols it has in place in this regard” ( Armenian Prisoners of War Video, recommendation no. 1). In the same decision, the Board also recommended that “following the development of the protocol on evidence preservation related to atrocity crimes and grave human rights violations, Meta should publicly share this protocol in the Transparency Center” ( Armenian Prisoners of War Video, recommendation no. 4). Meta reported to the Board on the implementation of these recommendations but did not publish information to demonstrate this. In response to both recommendations, Meta stated, “We briefed the Oversight Board [...] to share details about our new approach to retaining potential evidence of atrocity crimes and serious violations of international human rights law” (Meta’s H1 2024 Bi-Annual Update on the Oversight Board). This is among the Board’s recommendations that is particularly consequential for the protection of human rights, making transparency and full implementation with public announcement paramount.

The Board reiterates that full implementation of the above recommendations would allow users to more effectively report on and document human rights abuses. The stakes are particularly high in countries such as Iran, where repressive regimes resort to internet suspension to conceal such abuses. Moreover, as the Board has previously noted, Meta’s move towards more advanced AI models carries both risks and positive potential with respect to the treatment of graphic content. AI models may be better able to discern, at scale, when graphic content is being shared for the purpose of raising awareness. However, as the Board stated, to determine whether AI-based content moderation models achieve greater protection of human rights in this area will “require an increase in data gathering and assessment, transparency on the findings of those assessments, and independent oversight on how decisions are made throughout this critical period of transformation.”

Decision

The Board overturns Meta’s original decisions to remove both posts. The Board acknowledges Meta’s correction of its initial errors once the Board brought the cases to Meta’s attention.

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