Descrição do caso
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.
Comentários
The use of Artificial Intelligence Technology to automatically disable accounts is also a worrying issue. The use of this A.I Technology is often fraught with mistakes. A real human should be reviewing accounts and content to get a full understanding of the individual's account. Meta makes billions of dollars in profit; they can surely afford to hire more staff for manual auditing of accounts.
Meta needs to do a better job in explaining why it is removing content or disabling accounts for all individuals. There is a broad and vague reason that is often provided when an account receives a community guidelines breach notice. Meta will provide a link to the community guidelines section, but will not specify EXACTLY what was in breach in relation to the content that was flagged in breach of the community guidelines. The same goes for accounts that are disabled; there is no specific mention of what post or what chat message has led to that account being disabled by Meta.
The appeals process within Facebook and Instagram is extremely poor. There is no option to write a valid response during the appeal submission. Users are only given an option to press the "appeal" button, and it is up to Meta to decide if the appeal is accepted or denied. Without a proper written submission from the user in the appeal process, how can any staff member at Meta have the context behind the content, and how can they understand the difference between what was meant to be satire and freedom of expression if they only take the content based on reports from other users?
Bot spam is another real issue, and Meta needs to focus more on addressing this. There are hundreds of bot services available on the internet where users can purchase likes, reposts, comments, shares, and even bots to falsely report content and accounts. When content or an account is reported numerous times, Meta should be looking at whether or not the accounts are authentic or if they are bots.
Bots can be used on social media platforms as a way to push political propaganda and misinformation. In the same way, bots can be used to silence users by having their content removed or accounts removed with false reporting.
Meta should already have the technology to view user data, including IP address, device data, and account data. If users are verified, then Meta also has access to user ID information. These data points must be used to eliminate the bots and to ensure that real individuals are posting real content on Meta platforms.