केस विवरण
Account Ban for Targeting Public Figures
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:
Account Ban for Targeting Public Figures
2026-006-IG-MR, 2026-007-IG-MR, 2026-08-IG-MR, 2026-009-IG-MR, 2026-0010-IG-MR
Meta Referrals
Submit a public comment using the button below
The Board will assess whether Meta was right to permanently disable a user account, following a referral in which the company requested guidance from the Board. This is the first time the Board has taken a case on Meta's approach to permanently disabling accounts – an urgent concern for Meta’s users. It represents a significant opportunity to provide users with greater transparency on Meta’s account enforcement policies and practices, make recommendations for improvement, and expand the types of cases the Board can review.
In 2025, Meta permanently disabled a widely followed Instagram account for repeatedly violating the company’s Community Standards. Meta referred its decision to the Board, pointing to the challenges of respecting political speech while following its account disablement rules when users engage in patterns of abuse, including against public figures and for threats against female journalists.
Meta referred five posts made in the year before they permanently disabled the Instagram account. Multiple posts included visual threats of violence and harassment against a female journalist. Other posts featured anti-gay slurs against prominent politicians and content depicting a sex act, alleging misconduct against minorities. Meta determined that the posts violated the Violence and Incitement, Bullying and Harassment, Hateful Conduct, and Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity Community Standards. The company removed each post from the platform and applied a strike to the account after each violation.
The account came to the attention of Meta staff, who reported it to the company's internal experts for review. They determined that the account demonstrated a persistent pattern of repeated violations of the company’s policies over the previous year and posed a safety risk, as some of the referred posts called for violence that could lead to death. While the account had not yet accrued enough strikes to be automatically disabled, this risk, combined with the account’s multiple violations of Meta’s policies, led to the decision to permanently disable the account.
Meta’s Account Integrity policy notes that the company may disable accounts that persistently violate its policies, and in its referral, the company explained that it also disables accounts that demonstrate a clear intent to violate its policies. Meta noted that decisions to disable accounts can also be made outside of the strike system on a case-by-case basis, considering a user’s behavior and activity.
The Board would appreciate public comments that address:
- How best to ensure due process and fairness to people whose accounts are penalized or permanently disabled.
- The effectiveness of measures used by social media platforms to protect public figures and journalists from accounts engaged in repeated abuse and threats of violence, in particular against women in the public eye.
- Challenges in identifying and considering off-platform context when assessing threats against public figures and journalists.
- Research into the efficacy of punitive measures to shape online behaviors, and the efficacy of alternative or complementary interventions.
- Good industry practices in transparency reporting on account enforcement decisions and related appeals.
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 Tuesday, 3 February.
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.
टिप्पणियाँ
The cases under review highlight a growing concern among users about how permanent account disablement is applied, particularly when decisions are made outside the standard strike system and rely in part on automated or pattern-based assessments.
Permanent disablement is the most serious enforcement action a platform can take. Because of its impact, it should be applied in a way that is predictable and clearly tied to user behavior that poses an ongoing risk. In practice, many users do not have a clear understanding of how close they are to such an outcome, especially when enforcement is triggered not only by original posts but also by engagement with content that may be considered borderline or inflammatory.
In my view, this creates a due process problem. Users cannot reasonably adjust their behavior if they are not clearly warned that certain actions—short of explicit policy violations—are contributing to account-level risk. When a permanent ban occurs without prior, specific notice or intermediate penalties, it feels arbitrary, even when the platform believes it is acting to protect safety.
This issue is more pronounced when accounts are disabled outside the strike system. While there are situations where immediate action is justified—such as credible threats of violence or sustained harassment of public figures or journalists—those cases should be narrowly defined. Otherwise, the distinction between intentional abuse and accumulated or contextual violations becomes unclear to users, particularly when automated systems are involved.
Protecting public figures and journalists, especially women who are disproportionately targeted, is essential. At the same time, enforcement systems work best when they focus on changing behavior, not just removing users. Clear warnings, temporary suspensions, and direct explanations of risk are often more effective than immediate permanent bans for users who are not acting with clear malicious intent.
Based on these considerations, I encourage the Board to recommend that Meta:
• Require clearer escalation steps before permanent disablement in cases where there is no immediate safety risk.
• Provide more explicit warnings that certain types of engagement—not just posting—can place an account at risk.
• Increase transparency around account disablements that occur outside the strike system, including high-level reporting on how often and why they occur.
• Offer clearer explanations and review options when automated systems play a significant role in permanent account decisions.
These changes would not reduce platform safety. Instead, they would improve fairness, user understanding, and long-term trust in Meta’s enforcement practices, while still allowing the company to act decisively in cases of genuine harm.