Board to Analyze Coded Language and Racial Discrimination via Emojis
October 16, 2025
Today, the Board is announcing new cases for consideration. As part of this, we invite people and organizations to submit public comments by using the button below.
Case Selection
As we cannot hear every appeal, the Board prioritizes cases that have the potential to affect lots of users around the world, are of critical importance to public discourse or raise important questions about Meta’s policies.
The cases that we are announcing today are:
Emojis Targeting Black People
2026-001-FB-UA, 2026-002-IG-UA
User Appeals
Submit a public comment using the button below
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 the use of monkey emojis to refer to Black people. The first case involves a short video posted on Facebook in May 2025 by a user in Brazil. The video features a scene from the movie The Hangover, in which two characters argue in Portuguese and claim ownership of a monkey. Text overlaying the video names the characters “Barcelona” and “Real Madrid,” which are Spanish football clubs. During the argument, the character labelled “Real Madrid” briefly threatens the one labelled “Barcelona” with a gun. Additional overlay text refers to boys rising to prominence in Brazilian football, and the video’s caption includes only a monkey emoji. The post was viewed over 22,000 times, and 12 people reported the content.
The second case involves a comment posted in May 2025, in response to a video posted on a user’s Instagram account. In the parent post’s video, the posting user is on camera expressing indignation after witnessing a racist incident in Ireland, in which a group of teenagers shouted a racist slur at a Black woman on the street. In the caption, the posting user expresses heartbreak for the victim, and emphasizes that being both Black and Irish is possible but this is a conversation that “white privileged people” do not want to have. The user also urges others to speak up and to have the hard conversations, and encourages society to do better against racism. The caption ends with a hashtag calling to reject racism in Ireland.
In response to this video, another Instagram user posted a comment saying that they do not support the user’s message. Instead, the commenting user challenges the creator of the video, asking them what they intend to do about the situation, adding a statement expressing eagerness for the situation to “blow up,” and “to have some glorious fun with all the [monkey emojis] & out in the street.” The comment included several monkey emojis, along with laughing and praying emojis, highlighting “glorious days ahead.” The parent post was viewed over 4,000 times, and 62 people reported the comment.
The two posts were reported for Hateful Conduct and sent for review by Meta. However, they were not assessed further and remained on the platforms. In both cases, the users who reported the posts appealed Meta’s decision to leave the posts up. Following human review, Meta upheld its initial decisions on appeal, after which the users appealed to the Board.
In statements to the Board, the reporting users explain that the posts contain racist language by comparing Black people to monkeys. The reporter in the second case emphasizes that using emojis in place of words is clearly racist and highlights flaws in Instagram’s automated detection systems.
As a result of the Board selecting these cases for review, Meta determined its initial decisions were wrong and removed the posts in July 2025 for violating the company’s Hateful Conduct Community Standard. The external policy prohibits content “targeting a person or group of people … on the basis of their … protected characteristic(s),” including race, ethnicity and national origin, “in written or visual form.” This encompasses “dehumanizing speech in the form of comparisons to or generalizations about … animals in general or specific types of animals that are culturally perceived as inferior (including but not limited to: Black people and apes or ape-like creatures).” These comparisons can be shown visually through the use of emojis and discerned by the content’s context.
After being reviewed by the company’s subject matter experts, Meta decided that both posts constituted dehumanizing speech that compares individuals to animals based on their protected characteristics, prohibited under the Hateful Conduct policy. In the first case, Meta explained that the content appears to repurpose a movie scene to comment on European football clubs’ recruitment practices, suggesting the football clubs Real Madrid and Barcelona compete over Brazilian athletes (who are often Black) in the same manner as the men in the scene argue over the ownership of the monkey. Given recent racial incidents in which rival supporters compared some of these recruits to monkeys, the company determined that the monkey emoji was being used to compare Black Brazilians to monkeys. In the second case, Meta determined the commenting user appears to equate Black people to monkeys by sharing the monkey emoji to refer to them.
The Board selected these cases to explore the use of “algospeak” and online racial discrimination in sports. “Algospeak” is using coded language or emojis to convey dehumanizing or hateful messages in order to bypass automated content moderation systems. The Board also aims to assess the enforcement of such evolving forms of expression, both by human moderators and automated systems, particularly following Meta’s announcement on January 7, 2025 that it is changing its automated policy violations detections systems. The company stated that it will “continue to focus these systems on tackling illegal and high-severity violations,” while relying on user reports to address “less severe policy violations.” The cases are relevant to one of the Board’s seven strategic priorities, Hate Speech Against Marginalized Groups.
The Board would appreciate public comments that address:
- The prevalence, forms and impact of racial discrimination and hate speech, both online and offline, particularly targeting Black people in Brazil, Ireland, Spain and the rest of Europe.
- The use of emojis, such as the monkey emoji or other coded language to target protected characteristic groups on social media, including in sports-related conversations. Comments can also address ways in which such content could potentially bypass algorithms designed to flag harmful content, and content moderation challenges, particularly after Meta’s announcement on January 7, 2025.
- Views on human rights responsibilities of social media companies and best practices in identifying and responding to hate speech, including to address use of emojis to communicate specific ideas and/or evade moderation.
- The prevalence of online racism and racial discrimination in discussions about sports, especially in football (soccer), and its impact on Black athletes.
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 Thursday 30 October.
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.
