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
I would like to submit this comment to highlight a systemic issue in Meta’s content governance and dispute resolution mechanisms, based on my direct experience as an EU-based user and page administrator.
In December 2025, a Facebook page that I had administered for over ten years was permanently suspended following a trademark complaint. Subsequently, the original complainant formally withdrew the claim using Meta’s official trademark retraction form, attaching a signed declaration confirming that an amicable agreement had been reached.
Despite the correct submission of the retraction, Meta refused to restore the page, relying on generic procedural justifications and automated responses, without providing any effective opportunity for adversarial review or human assessment. Attempts to clarify the issue were repeatedly rejected, even where all requested identifiers (report ID, URLs, and supporting documentation) were provided.
Most notably, I was prevented from accessing the Oversight Board appeal process, as the page was disabled at the account level and classified as ineligible, leaving me without any internal remedy. This resulted in a complete denial of meaningful redress, notwithstanding the withdrawal of the underlying legal claim.
This experience raises serious concerns regarding:
• the lack of effective due process before irreversible enforcement actions;
• the disproportionate impact of automated enforcement on long-standing, non-monetized pages;
• and the absence of a functional path to the Oversight Board for users whose accounts are disabled, even where the original basis for enforcement has ceased to exist.
I respectfully urge the Oversight Board to consider whether Meta’s current enforcement and appeal framework complies with principles of fairness, proportionality, and access to remedy, particularly in the context of EU users protected under the Digital Services Act.
My case is not an isolated dispute, but an example of a structural imbalance between platform power and user rights, which merits scrutiny at a systemic level
It should be illegal for Meta to disable accounts.
Facebook is not a social media platform—it is an SSO (single sign on) tool competing with Google and Apple. This means that it is used to login to other services. Permanently or even temporarily disabling that places undue stress on users.
It is also a payment platform. Disabling financial services based on non financial factors violates federal laws.
Meta is a dishonest and dishonorable mega corporation that is not responsible with its power, and its imperfect AI moderation is well known to be awful and inconsistent. Choose to do whatever you want, but you know what I’m saying is true. Fuck you for your inaction and your awful trash policies.