የተሳሳተ መረጃ

የፖሊሲ ዝርዝሮች
የተጠቃሚ ተሞክሮዎች

የፖሊሲ ዝርዝሮች

መዝገብ ይቀይሩ
የፖሊሲ ምክንያት
የተከለከሉ ነገሮችን በተመለከተ የተሟላ ዝርዝር ለመግለጽ ምንም መንገድ ስለሌለ የተሳሳተ መረጃ በእኛ የማህበረሰብ ደንቦች ውስጥ ከተገለጹት ሌሎች የንግግር ዓይነቶች የተለየ ነው። በግልጽ በሚታይ ጥቃት ወይም የጥላቻ ድርጊት፣ ለምሳሌ፣ የኛ ፖሊሲዎች የምንከለክላቸውን ይዘቶች ይገልፃሉ፣ እና በእነዚያ ፖሊሲዎች የማይስማሙ ሰዎች እንኳን ሊከተሏቸው ይችላሉ። ሆኖም ግን፣ በተሳሳተ መረጃ እንዲህ አይነት መስመር ማቅረብ አንችልም። ዓለም ያለማቋረጥ እየተቀየረች ነው እና ለአንድ ደቂቃ እውነት የሆነው በሚቀጥለው ደቂቃ እውነት ላይሆን ይችላል። ሰዎች በዙሪያቸው ስላለው ዓለም የተለያዩ የመረጃ ደረጃዎች አሏቸው እና የሆነ ነገር እውነት ሳይሆን እውነት ነው ብለው ሊያምኑ ይችላሉ። “የተሳሳተ መረጃን” በቀላሉ የሚከለክል ፖሊሲ አገልግሎታችንን ለሚጠቀሙ ሰዎች ጠቃሚ ማሳሰቢያ አይሰጥም እና ሙሉ በሙሉ የመረጃ ተደራሽነት ስለሌለን ተፈጻሚነት የለውም።
ይልቁንም፣ ፖሊሲዎቻችን የተለያዩ የተሳሳቱ መረጃዎች ምድቦችን ይገልፃሉ እና ንግግሩን ስናይ እንዴት እንደምናስተናግደው ግልጽ መመሪያ ለመስጠት እንሞክራለን። ለእያንዳንዱ ምድብ፣ አካሄዳችን የመግለጫ፣ ደህንነት፣ ክብር፣ ትክክለኛነት እና ግላዊነት እሴቶቻችንን ሚዛናዊ ለማድረግ የምናደርገውን ሙከራ ያንፀባርቃል።
በቅርበት የአካላዊ ጉዳት ስጋት ለማምጣት በቀጥታ አስተዋፅዖ ሊያደርግ የሚችል ከሆነ የተሳሳተ መረጃን እናስወግዳለን። እንዲሁም በፖለቲካ ሂደቶች ተግባር ላይ ጣልቃ ለመግባት በቀጥታ አስተዋፅዖ ሊያበረክቱ የሚችሉ ይዘቶችን እናስወግዳለን። በእነዚህ ምድቦች ውስጥ የተሳሳቱ መረጃዎች ምን እንደሆኑ ለመወሰን፣ የይዘቱን እውነትነት እና በቅርበት ጉዳት ለማድረስ አስተዋፅዖ የሚያደርግ መሆን አለመሆኑን ለመገምገም እውቀት እና ችሎታ ካላቸው ገለልተኛ ባለሙያዎች ጋር በጋር እንሰራለን። ይህ ለምሳሌ ስለ የእርስ በርስ ግጭት የሚናፈሰውን አሉባልታ እውነትነት ለማወቅ በአንድ ሀገር ውስጥ መሬት ላይ ከሚገኙ የሰብአዊ መብት ተሟጋች ድርጅቶች ጋር በሽርክና መስራትን ይጨምራል።
ለሌሎች የተሳሳቱ መረጃዎች፣ ስርጭትን በመቀነስ ወይም ውጤታማ ውይይትን የሚያበረታታ አካባቢ በመፍጠር ላይ እናተኩራለን። ሰዎች ብዙውን ጊዜ የተሳሳተ መረጃን ምንም ጉዳት በሌላቸው መንገዶች ለምሳሌ አንድን ነገር ለማጋነን እንደሚጠቀሙ እናውቃለን ("ይህ ቡድን በስፖርቱ ታሪክ እጅግ መጥፎ ሪከርድ አለው!") ወይም በቀልድ ወይም በአሽሙር ("ባለቤቴ የአመቱን ምርጥ ባልን አሸንፏል።”) እንዲሁም ልክ ያልሆኑ ነገሮችን በያዙ ታሪኮች ልምዳቸውን ሊያካፍሉ ይችላሉ። በአንዳንድ ሁኔታዎች፣ ሰዎች ሌሎች ውሸት አድርገው የሚቆጥሯቸውን ወይም እውነት ነው ብለው ያመኑትን ነገር ግን ሌሎች ያልተሟላ ወይም አሳሳች አድርገው የሚቆጥሯቸውን ጥልቅ ግላዊ አስተያየቶችን ያካፍላሉ።
እንደዚህ አይነት ንግግር ምን ያህል የተለመደ እንደሆነ በመገንዘብ፣ አሳሳች ወይም ግራ የሚያጋባ ይዘት ሲኖር ለተጠቃሚዎች አጋዥ መረጃ በማቅረብ ላይ እናተኩራለን። የዚያ ጥረት አካል እንደመሆናችን መጠን፣ ከአሜሪካ ውጭ በብዙ የዓለም ክፍሎች ካሉ ከሶስተኛ ወገን የእውነታ አረጋጋጭ ድርጅቶች ጋር በመተባበር በመድረኮቻችን ላይ ያለውን እጅግ በጣም በስፋት የሚሰራጭ ይዘትን ለመገምገም እና ትክክለኝነት ለመመዘን እንሞክራለን (በአሜሪካ ውስጥ ስላለን አቀራረብ እዚህ እና እዚህ ይመልከቱ)። ከአሜሪካ ጀምሮ፣ የማህበረሰብ ማስታወሻዎች ፕሮግራም ሰዎች አሳሳች ወይም ግራ የሚያጋቡ ልጥፎችን በFacebook፣ በInstagram እና Threads ላይ ተጨማሪ አውድ እንዲያክሉ ያስችላቸዋል (እዚህ ይመልከቱ)። እንዲሁም ሰዎች በራሳቸው ምን ማንበብ፣ ማመን፣ እና ማጋራት እንዳለባቸው እንዲወስኑ የሚዲያ እና ዲጂታል እውቀትን ለመጨመር ግብዓቶችን እናቀርባለን። ሰዎች በዲጂታል የተፈጠረ ወይም የተቀየረ ተፈጥሯዊ ይዘትን ከፎቶ-ተጨባጭ ቪዲዮ ወይም ከእውነተኛ ድምጽ ጋር በሚለጥፉበት ጊዜ ሁሉ የእኛን የAI መግለጫ መሣሪያ በመጠቀም እንዲገልጹ እንፈልጋለን፣ እና ይህን ለማድረግ ካልቻሉ ቅጣቶችን ተግባራዊ ማድረግ እንችላለን። በተለይ በህዝባዊ ጠቀሜታ ላይ ሰዎችን በማሳሳት ከፍተኛ አደጋን በሚፈጥር በተወሰኑ በዲጂታል የተፈጠረ ወይም የተለወጠ ይዘት ላይ መለያ ልናክል እንችላለን።
በመጨረሻም፣ ይዘትን እና ባህሪን ከሌሎች የተሳሳቱ መረጃዎች ስርጭት ጋር በሚደራረቡ ሌሎች ቦታዎች ላይ እንከለክላለን። ለምሳሌ፣ የእኛ የማህበረሰብ ደንቦች የውሸት መለያዎችን፣ ማጭበርበርን እና የተቀናጀ ትክክለኛ ያልሆነ ባህሪን ይከለክላሉ።
የመስመር ላይ እና ከመስመር ውጭ አካባቢዎች ሲቀየሩ እና ሲሻሻሉ፣ እነዚህን ፖሊሲዎች ማሻሻላችንን እንቀጥላለን። ከዚህ በታች የተዘረዘሩትን የተሳሳቱ መረጃዎችን በተደጋጋሚ የሚያጋሩ መለያዎች ይዘታቸው በዚህ ፖሊሲ መሰረት ከመፈጸሙ በተጨማሪ ያነሰ ስርጭት፣ በማስተዋወቅ ችሎታቸው ላይ ገደቦችን ይቀበላሉ ወይም ከመድረኮቻችን ላይ ሊወገዱ ይችላሉ። Meta ይዘትን በሚያስወግድበት ጊዜ ምን እንደሚፈጠር ተጨማሪ መረጃ እዚህ ማግኘት ይቻላል።
መመሪያዎች
የምናስወግደው የተሳሳተ መረጃ፡-
የሚከተሉትን አይነት የተሳሳቱ መረጃዎችን እናስወግዳለን፡-
I. አካላዊ ጉዳት ወይም ጥቃት
ባለሙያ አጋሮች የወሰኑትን የተሳሳቱ መረጃዎችን ወይም የማይረጋገጡ አሉባልታዎችን ድንገተኛ ጥቃት ወይም በሰዎች ላይ አካላዊ ጉዳት ሊያስከትል የሚችሉትን እናስወግዳለን። የተሳሳተ መረጃን የምንገልጸው ስልጣን ባለው የሶስተኛ ወገን ውሸት እንደሆነ የተደመደመ ይዘትን ነው። ሊረጋገጥ የማይችልን አሉባልታ የምንገልፀው የይገባኛል ጥያቄ ምንጭ ኤክስፐርት አጋሮች እጅግ በጣም ከባድ ወይም ለመፈለግ የማይቻል ነው፣ የይገባኛል ጥያቄው ውድቅ የሚሆንበት በቂ ልዩነት ከሌለ ወይም የይገባኛል ጥያቄው በጣም የማይታመን ወይም ለማመን በጣም ምክንያታዊ ያልሆነ ከሆነ ለየትኛው ባለስልጣን ምንጮች የሌሉበት ከሆነ።
አንዳንድ ጊዜ ጥሩ የሚመስሉ የተሳሳቱ መረጃዎች፣ በተወሰነ አውድ ውስጥ፣ ከመስመር ውጭ ለሚደርስ ጉዳት አደጋ አስተዋፅኦ እንደሚያበረክቱ እናውቃለን፣ ለከፍተኛ ሞት፣ ከባድ የአካል ጉዳት ወይም ሌላ አካላዊ ጉዳት የሚያደርሱ የጥቃት ማስፈራሪያዎችን ጨምሮ። በእነዚህ የአካባቢ ተለዋዋጭ ሁኔታዎች ላይ እውቀት ካላቸው ዓለም አቀፍ መንግስታዊ ካልሆኑ ድርጅቶች (NGOs)፣ ለትርፍ ያልተቋቋሙ ድርጅቶች፣ ግብረሰናይ ድርጅቶች እና ዓለም አቀፍ ድርጅቶች ጋር እንሰራለን።
ከፍ ያለ የህብረተሰብ ብጥብጥ ስጋት ባለባቸው አገራት፣ የትኞቹ የሐሰት የይገባኛል ጥያቄዎች ለሚመጣው የአካል ጉዳት አደጋ በቀጥታ አስተዋጽኦ እንደያደርጉ ለመረዳት ከአካባቢው አጋሮች ጋር በንቃት እንሰራለን። ከዚያ እነዚያን የይገባኛል ጥያቄዎችን በእኛ መድረክ ላይ የሚያደርገውን ይዘት ለመለየት እና ለማስወገድ እንሰራለን። ለምሳሌ፣ ከሀገር ውስጥ ባለሙያዎች ጋር በመመካከር የአመጽ ድርጊቶችን፣ የአመጽ ሰለባዎችን ወይም ወንጀለኞችን፣ የጦር መሳሪያዎችን ወይም ወታደራዊ ሃርድዌርን በሐሰት እናሳያለን የሚሉ ከአውድ ውጪ ያሉ ሚዲያዎችን ልናስወግድ እንችላለን።
II. ጎጂ የሆነ የተሳሳተ የጤና መረጃ
በሕዝብ ጤና እና ደህንነት ላይ ለሚደርሰው ጉዳት ቀጥተኛ አስተዋፅዖ ሊያበረክቱ የሚችሉ የተሳሳተ የጤና መረጃዎችን ለመለየት ከዋና የጤና ድርጅቶች ጋር እንመካከራለን። የምናስወግደው ጎጂ የጤና መረጃ የሚከተሉትን ያጠቃልላል።
  • ስለ ክትባቶች የተሳሳተ መረጃ። የህዝብ ጤና ባለሥልጣናት መረጃው የተሳሳተ ነው እናም ምናልባትም ለአመፅ ወይም ለአካላዊ ጉዳት አስተዋጽኦ ያበረክታል ብለው ሲደመድሙ የተሳሳተ መረጃን እናስወግደዋለን። ይህን ያካትታሉ፡-
    • ክትባቶች ኦቲዝምን ያስከትላሉ(ለምሳሌ፡ በአሁኑ ጊዜ ብዙ ልጆች ኦቲዝም ያለባቸው ከክትባት ቁጥር መጨመር የተነሳ ነው።)
    • ክትባቶች ድንገተኛ የሕፃናት ሞት ሲንድሮምን ያስከትላሉ(ለምሳሌ፡ “ክትባቶች SIDSን እንደሚያመጡ አያውቁም?”
    • ክትባቶች ለመከላከል የታሰቡበትን በሽታ ያስከትላሉ፣ ወይም ግለሰቡ በበሽታው የመያዝ እድሉን ከፍተኛ ያረጋሉ(ምሳሌ፡ “ክትባት መውሰድዎ ውስጡ የበሽታው ቅንጣት ስላለ በበሽታው የመያዝ እድልዎን የበለጠ ያደርገዋል።” ይጠንቀቁ!”)
    • ክትባቶች ወይም ንጥረ ነገሮቻቸው ገዳይ፣ መጥፎ፣ መርዛማ፣ ጎጂ ወይም አደገኛ ናቸው(ምሳሌ፡ በእርግጠኝነት፣ በሰውነትዎ ውስጥ መርዝ ማስገባት ምንም የማይመስልዎ ከሆነ ክትባቶችን መውሰድ ይችላሉ።”)
    • ተፈጥሯዊ መከላከያ በክትባት ከተገኘው የበሽታ መከላከያ የበለጠ ደህንነቱ የተጠበቀ ነው(ምሳሌ፡ “ከክትባቱ ይልቅ በሽታውን መያዙ የበለጠ አስተማማኝ ነው።”)
    • የጊዜው ትክክለኛነት በሕክምና ቢመከርም በአጭር ጊዜ ውስጥ ብዙ ክትባቶችን መውሰድ አደገኛ ነው(ምሳሌ፡ “በጭራሽ ከአንድ ክትባትን በላይ በአንድ ጊዜ አይውሰዱ፣ አደገኛ ነው ፤ ዶክተርዎ ምንም ቢነግሮት ግድ የለኝም!”)
    • ክትባቶች ሊከላከሉት የሚፈልጉት በሽታ ለመከላከል ውጤታማ አይደሉም። ነገር ግን፣ ለኮቪድ-19፣ ለጉንፋን እና ለወባ ክትባቶች እነዚያ ክትባቶች አንድ ሰው ቫይረሶችን እንዳይዝ ለመከላከል ውጤታማ አይደሉም የሚሉ ጥያቄዎችን አናስወግድም። (ምሳሌዎች፡ ይወገድ-“የፖሊዮ ክትባቱ በሽታውን ከመያዝ የሚያግድ ምንም ነገር የለውም።” ይወገድ-“ክትባቶች በእርግጥ በበሽታው እንዳይጠቁ የሚያግድልዎት ምንም ነገር የለም።” ይፈቀዳል –ክትባቱ በኮቪድ-19 እንዳይዝዎት አያግድም፣ ለዚያም ነው አሁንም ከሌሎች ጋር በሚሆኑበት ጊዜ በማህበራዊ ደረጃ መራቅ እና ጭምብል ማድረግ ያለብዎት።
    • በኩፍኝ መያዝ ሞት ሊያስከትል አይችልም (ተጨማሪ መረጃ ወይም የይዘት ጽሑፍ ይጠይቃል)((ምሳሌ፡ “በኩፍኝ ስለመያዝዎ አይጨነቁ ፣ ለሞት ሊዳርግ አይችልም”)
    • ክትባት የተዘጋጀላቸውን በሽታዎች ለመከላከል ቫይታሚን ሲ የክትባቶችን ያህል ውጤታማ ነው።
  • በሕዝብ ጤና ድንገተኛ አደጋዎች ወቅት ስለ ጤና የተሳሳተ መረጃ። በሕዝብ ጤና ድንገተኛ አደጋዎች ወቅት የሕዝብ ጤና ባለሥልጣናት መረጃው ሐሰት ነው ብለው ሲወስኑ እና ግለሰቦች ጎጂ በሽታ እንዲይዙ ወይም እንዲዛመቱ ወይም ተያያዥ ክትባትን አለመቀበልን ጨምሮ ለአካል ጉዳት አደጋ ቀጥተኛ አስተዋፅዖ ያደርጋሉ የሚል ድምዳሜ ላይ ሲደርስ እናስወግዳለን። ከአለም አቀፍ እና ከአካባቢው የጤና ባለስልጣናት ጋር በመተባበር የህዝብ ጤና ድንገተኛ አደጋዎችን እንለያለን።
  • ለጤና ጉዳዮች ለጎጂ ተአምራዊ ፈውሶች ማስተዋወቅ ወይም መሟገት። እነዚህ ህክምናዎች በጤና ሁኔታ ውስጥ የተመከሩ አፕሊኬሽኖች ለከባድ የአካል ጉዳት ወይም ለሞት አደጋ ቀጥተኛ አስተዋፅኦ የሚያደርጉ እና ህክምናው ምንም አይነት ህጋዊ የጤና ጥቅም የሌለውን ህክምና ያካትታል።(ለምሳሌ፡ ማጽጃ፣ ፀረ-ተባይ፣ ጥቁር ሳልቭ፣ ካስቲክ ሶዳ)።
III. የመራጭ ወይም የሕዝብ ቆጠራ ጣልቃገብነት
የምርጫ እና የሕዝብ ቆጠራ ታማኝነትን ለማራመድ በሚደረገው ጥረት ሰዎች በእነዚያ ሂደቶች ውስጥ የመሳተፍ ችሎታ ላይ የመጠላለፍ አደጋን በቀጥታ ሊያበረክቱ የሚችሉ የተሳሳቱ መረጃዎችን እናስወግዳለን። ይህ የሚከተሉትን ያካትታል፡
  • ቀናቶቹን፣ ቦታዎቹን፣ እና ሰአታቱን እንዲሁም የመምረጫ ዘዴዎችን እና የመራጭ ምዝገባን እና የህዝብ ቆጠራ ማሳሳት።
  • ማን መምረጥ እንደሚችል በተመለከተ፣ የመራጭነት መስፈርች፣ ድምጽ አቆጣጠር፣ እንዲሁም ለመምረጥ ምን መረጃ እና/ወይም ቁሳቁሶች መቅረብ እንዳለባቸው ማሳሳት።
  • ስለ እጩ ተወዳዳሪው መወዳደር ወይም አለመወደደር የተሳሳተ መረጃ መስጠት።
  • የሕዝብ ቆጠራው ላይ ማን መሳተፍ እንደሚችል ወይም ለመሳተፍ ምን መረጃ ወይም ነገሮች መቅረብ እንዳለባቸው በተመለከተ ማሳሳት።
  • በቆጠራው ውስጥ የመንግስት ተሳትፎን በተመለከተ የተሳሳተ መረጃ፣ ይህም አስፈላጊ ከሆነ የአንድ ግለሰብ የቆጠራ መረጃ ለሌላ (የህዝብ ቆጠራ ያልሆነ) የመንግስት ኤጀንሲ ማጋራትን ያካትታል።
  • የዩኤስ ኢሚግሬሽን እና ጉምሩክ ማስፈጸሚያ (ICE) በድምጽ መስጫ ቦታ ላይ ነው የሚሉ የሐሰት ወይም ያልተረጋገጡ የይገባኛል ጥያቄዎች።
  • በድምጽ መስጫው ሂደት ውስጥ ከተሳተፉ ሰዎች በኮቪድ-19 (ወይም በሌላ ተላላፊ በሽታ) ይያዛሉ የሚሉ ግልጽ የሆኑ የሐሰት የይገባኛል ጥያቄዎች።
  • በምርጫ ባለስልጣን እንደተረጋገጠው፣ በዩኤስ ድምጽ መስጫ ቦታ ላይ ስላለው ወቅታዊ ሁኔታ ድምጽ ለመስጠት አስቸጋሪ የሚያደርጉ የሐሰት የይገባኛል ጥያቄዎች።
የጥቃት ጥሪዎችን ለመሸፈን የታቀዱ ተጨማሪ ፖሊሲዎች አሉን፣ ሕገ-ወጥ ተሳትፎን ማሳደግ እና በምርጫዎች ውስጥ የተቀናጀ ጣልቃገብነት ጥሪዎችን ያቀርባል, ይህም በሌሎች የማህበረሰብ ደረጃዎች ክፍል ውስጥ ይወከላል።
ለሚከተለው ይዘት፣ መረጃ ሰጪ መለያን እናካትታለን፦
የተዛባ ሚድያ
ሚዲያ በተለያዩ መንገዶች ሊስተካከል ይችላል። በአብዛኛዎቹ ሁኔታዎች፣ እነዚህ ለውጦች ጥሩ ናቸው፣ ለምሳሌ ይዘት በሥነ ጥበባዊ ምክንያቶች እየተቆረጠ ወይም እየጠበበ ወይም ሙዚቃ ሲጨመር። በሌሎች አጋጣሚዎች፣ አስመስሎ ማስተካከሉ በግልጽ የሚታወቅ ስላልሆነ ሊያሳስት ይችላል።
  • ሊያሳስት የሚችል በዲጂታል የተፈጠረ ወይም የተለወጠ ይዘት። የማህበረሰብ ደንቦችን ለማይጥስ ይዘት በይዘቱ ፊት ላይ መረጃ ሰጭ መለያ ልናስቀምጥ እንችላለን - ወይም እንደ ማስታወቂያ የቀረቡ ይዘቶችን ውድቅ ልናደርግ እንችላለን - ይዘቱ በዲጂታል መልክ የተፈጠረ ወይም የተቀየረ እና በሕዝብ አስፈላጊነት ጉዳይ ላይ ህዝቡን በቁሳቁስ የማታለል ከፍተኛ አደጋን የሚፈጥር ፎቶግራፍ ወይም ቪዲዮ ወይም ተጨባጭ የድምፅ ኦዲዮ ከሆነ።
Policy Rationale
Misinformation is different from other types of speech addressed in our Community Standards because there is no way to articulate a comprehensive list of what is prohibited. With graphic violence or hateful conductspeech, for instance, our policies specify the contentspeech we prohibit, and even persons who disagree with those policies can follow them. With misinformation, however, we cannot provide such a line. The world is changing constantly, and what is true one minute may not be true the next minute. People also have different levels of information about the world around them, and may believe something is true when it is not. A policy that simply prohibits “misinformation” would not provide useful notice to the people who use our services and would be unenforceable, as we don’t have perfect access to information.
Instead, our policies articulate different categories of misinformation and try to provide clear guidance about how we treat that speech when we see it. For each category, our approach reflects our attempt to balance our values of expression, safety, dignity, authenticity, and privacy.
We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes. In determining what constitutes misinformation in these categories, we partner with independent experts who possess knowledge and expertise to assess the truth of the content and whether it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent harm. This includes, for instance, partnering with human rights organizations with a presence on the ground in a country to determine the truth of a rumor about civil conflict.
For all other misinformation, we focus on reducing its prevalence or creating an environment that fosters a productive dialogue. We know that people often use misinformation in harmless ways, such as to exaggerate a point (“This team has the worst record in the history of the sport!”) or in humor or satire (“My husband just won Husband of the Year.”) They also may share their experience through stories that contain inaccuracies. In some cases, people share deeply-held personal opinions that others consider false or share information that they believe to be true but others consider incomplete or misleading.
Recognizing how common such speech is, we focus on providingslowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation, and directing users with helpfulto authoritative information when there is potentially misleading or confusing content. As part of that effort, outside of the United States we partner with third-party fact checking organizations in many parts of the world to review and rate the accuracy of the most viral content on our platforms (see here and here for our approach in the United States). Beginning in the United States, the Community Notes program lets people add more context to Facebook, Instagram and Threads posts that are potentially misleading or confusing (see here). We also provide resources to increase media and digital literacy so people can decide what to read, trust, and share themselves. We require people to disclose, using our AI-disclosure tool, whenever they post organic content with photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so. We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance.
Finally, we prohibit content and behavior in other areas that often overlap with the spread of misinformation. For example, our Community Standards prohibit fake accounts, fraud, and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
As online and offline environments change and evolve, we will continue to evolve these policies. Accounts that repeatedly share the misinformation listed below may, in addition to having their content enforced on in accordance with this policy, receive decreased distribution, limitations on their ability to advertise, or be removed from our platforms. Additional information on what happens when Meta removes content can be found here.
Guidelines
Misinformation we remove:
We remove the following types of misinformation:
I. Physical Harm or Violence
We remove misinformation or unverifiable rumors that expert partners have determined are likely to directly contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm to people. We define misinformation as content with a claim that is determined to be false by an authoritative third party. We define an unverifiable rumor as a claim whose source expert partners confirm is extremely hard or impossible to trace, for which authoritative sources are absent, where there is not enough specificity for the claim to be debunked, or where the claim is too incredulous or too irrational to be believed.
We know that sometimes misinformation that might appear benign could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline harm, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, or other physical harm. We work with a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian organizations, and international organizations that have expertise in these local dynamics.
In countries experiencing a heightened risk of societal violence, we work proactively with local partners to understand which false claims may directly contribute to a risk of imminent physical harm. We then work to identify and remove content making those claims on our platform. For example, in consultation with local experts, we may remove out-of-context media falsely claiming to depict acts of violence, victims or perpetrators of violence, weapons, or military hardware.
II. Harmful Health Misinformation
We consult with leading health organizations to identify health misinformation likely to directly contribute to imminent harm to public health and safety. The harmful health misinformation that we remove includes the following:
  • Misinformation about vaccines. We remove misinformation primarily about vaccines when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to imminent vaccine refusals. They include:
    • Vaccines cause autism (Ex: “Increased vaccinations are why so many kids have autism these days.”)
    • Vaccines cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Ex: “Don’t you know vaccines cause SIDS?”
    • Vaccines cause the disease against which they are meant to protect, or cause the person receiving the vaccine to be more likely to get the disease (Ex: “Taking a vaccine actually makes you more likely to get the disease since there’s a strain of the disease inside. Beware!”)
    • Vaccines or their ingredients are deadly, toxic, poisonous, harmful, or dangerous (Ex: “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don’t mind putting poison in your body.”)
    • Natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity (Ex: “It’s safest to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.”)
    • It is dangerous to get several vaccines in a short period of time, even if that timing is medically recommended (Ex: “Never take more than one vaccine at the same time, that is dangerous - I don’t care what your doctor tells you!”)
    • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease against which they purport to protect. However, for the COVID-19, flu, and malaria vaccines, we do not remove claims that those vaccines are not effective in preventing someone from contracting those viruses. (Ex’s: Remove – “The polio vaccine doesn’t do anything to stop you from getting the disease”; Remove – “Vaccines actually don’t do anything to stop you from getting diseases”; Allow – “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19, that’s why you still need to socially distance and wear a mask when you’re around others.”)
    • Acquiring measles cannot cause death (requires additional information and/or context) (Ex: “Don’t worry about whether you get measles, it can’t be fatal.”)
    • Vitamin C is as effective as vaccines in preventing diseases for which vaccines exist.
  • Misinformation about health during public health emergencies. We remove misinformation during public health emergencies when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. We identify public health emergencies in partnership with global and local health authorities.
  • Promoting or advocating for harmful miracle cures for health issues. These include treatments where the recommended application, in a health context, is likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, and the treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).
III. Voter or Census Interference
In an effort to promote election and census integrity, we remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes. This includes the following:
  • Misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation.
  • Misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.
  • Misinformation about whether a candidate is running or not.
  • Misinformation about who can participate in the census and what information or materials must be provided in order to participate.
  • Misinformation about government involvement in the census, including, where applicable, that an individual's census information will be shared with another (non-census) government agency.
  • False or unverified claims that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is at a voting location.
  • Explicit false claims that people will be infected by COVID-19 (or another communicable disease) if they participate in the voting process.
  • False claims about current conditions at a U.S. voting location that would make it impossible to vote, as verified by an election authority.
We have additional policies intended to cover calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, and calls for coordinated interference in elections, which are represented in other sections of our Community Standards.
For the following content, we include an informative label:
Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead.
  • Content Digitally Created or Altered that May Mislead. For content that does not otherwise violate the Community Standards, we may place an informative label on the face of content – or reject content submitted as an advertisement – when the content is a photorealistic image or video, or realistic sounding audio, that was digitally created or altered and creates a particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of public importance.
Policy Rationale
Misinformation is different from other types of speech addressed in our Community Standards because there is no way to articulate a comprehensive list of what is prohibited. With graphic violence or hate speech, for instance, our policies specify the speech we prohibit, and even persons who disagree with those policies can follow them. With misinformation, however, we cannot provide such a line. The world is changing constantly, and what is true one minute may not be true the next minute. People also have different levels of information about the world around them, and may believe something is true when it is not. A policy that simply prohibits “misinformation” would not provide useful notice to the people who use our services and would be unenforceable, as we don’t have perfect access to information.
Instead, our policies articulate different categories of misinformation and try to provide clear guidance about how we treat that speech when we see it. For each category, our approach reflects our attempt to balance our values of expression, safety, dignity, authenticity, and privacy.
We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes. In determining what constitutes misinformation in these categories, we partner with independent experts who possess knowledge and expertise to assess the truth of the content and whether it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent harm. This includes, for instance, partnering with human rights organizations with a presence on the ground in a country to determine the truth of a rumor about civil conflict.
For all other misinformation, we focus on reducing its prevalence or creating an environment that fosters a productive dialogue. We know that people often use misinformation in harmless ways, such as to exaggerate a point (“This team has the worst record in the history of the sport!”) or in humor or satire (“My husband just won Husband of the Year.”) They also may share their experience through stories that contain inaccuracies. In some cases, people share deeply-held personal opinions that others consider false or share information that they believe to be true but others consider incomplete or misleading.
Recognizing how common such speech is, we focus on slowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation, and directing users to authoritative information. As part of that effort, outside of the United States we partner with third-party fact checking organizations in many parts of the world to review and rate the accuracy of the most viral content on our platforms (see here and here for our approach in the United States). Beginning in the United States, the Community Notes program lets people add more context to Facebook, Instagram and Threads posts that are potentially misleading or confusing (see here). We also provide resources to increase media and digital literacy so people can decide what to read, trust, and share themselves. We require people to disclose, using our AI-disclosure tool, whenever they post organic content with photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so. We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance.
Finally, we prohibit content and behavior in other areas that often overlap with the spread of misinformation. For example, our Community Standards prohibit fake accounts, fraud, and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
As online and offline environments change and evolve, we will continue to evolve these policies. Accounts that repeatedly share the misinformation listed below may, in addition to having their content enforced on in accordance with this policy, receive decreased distribution, limitations on their ability to advertise, or be removed from our platforms. Additional information on what happens when Meta removes content can be found here.
Guidelines
Misinformation we remove:
We remove the following types of misinformation:
I. Physical Harm or Violence
We remove misinformation or unverifiable rumors that expert partners have determined are likely to directly contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm to people. We define misinformation as content with a claim that is determined to be false by an authoritative third party. We define an unverifiable rumor as a claim whose source expert partners confirm is extremely hard or impossible to trace, for which authoritative sources are absent, where there is not enough specificity for the claim to be debunked, or where the claim is too incredulous or too irrational to be believed.
We know that sometimes misinformation that might appear benign could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline harm, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, or other physical harm. We work with a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian organizations, and international organizations that have expertise in these local dynamics.
In countries experiencing a heightened risk of societal violence, we work proactively with local partners to understand which false claims may directly contribute to a risk of imminent physical harm. We then work to identify and remove content making those claims on our platform. For example, in consultation with local experts, we may remove out-of-context media falsely claiming to depict acts of violence, victims or perpetrators of violence, weapons, or military hardware.
II. Harmful Health Misinformation
We consult with leading health organizations to identify health misinformation likely to directly contribute to imminent harm to public health and safety. The harmful health misinformation that we remove includes the following:
  • Misinformation about vaccines. We remove misinformation primarily about vaccines when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to imminent vaccine refusals. They include:
    • Vaccines cause autism (Ex: “Increased vaccinations are why so many kids have autism these days.”)
    • Vaccines cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Ex: “Don’t you know vaccines cause SIDS?”
    • Vaccines cause the disease against which they are meant to protect, or cause the person receiving the vaccine to be more likely to get the disease (Ex: “Taking a vaccine actually makes you more likely to get the disease since there’s a strain of the disease inside. Beware!”)
    • Vaccines or their ingredients are deadly, toxic, poisonous, harmful, or dangerous (Ex: “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don’t mind putting poison in your body.”)
    • Natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity (Ex: “It’s safest to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.”)
    • It is dangerous to get several vaccines in a short period of time, even if that timing is medically recommended (Ex: “Never take more than one vaccine at the same time, that is dangerous - I don’t care what your doctor tells you!”)
    • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease against which they purport to protect. However, for the COVID-19, flu, and malaria vaccines, we do not remove claims that those vaccines are not effective in preventing someone from contracting those viruses. (Ex’s: Remove – “The polio vaccine doesn’t do anything to stop you from getting the disease”; Remove – “Vaccines actually don’t do anything to stop you from getting diseases”; Allow – “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19, that’s why you still need to socially distance and wear a mask when you’re around others.”)
    • Acquiring measles cannot cause death (requires additional information and/or context) (Ex: “Don’t worry about whether you get measles, it can’t be fatal.”)
    • Vitamin C is as effective as vaccines in preventing diseases for which vaccines exist.
  • Misinformation about health during public health emergencies. We remove misinformation during public health emergencies when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. We identify public health emergencies in partnership with global and local health authorities.
  • Promoting or advocating for harmful miracle cures for health issues. These include treatments where the recommended application, in a health context, is likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, and the treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).
III. Voter or Census Interference
In an effort to promote election and census integrity, we remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes. This includes the following:
  • Misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation.
  • Misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.
  • Misinformation about whether a candidate is running or not.
  • Misinformation about who can participate in the census and what information or materials must be provided in order to participate.
  • Misinformation about government involvement in the census, including, where applicable, that an individual's census information will be shared with another (non-census) government agency.
  • False or unverified claims that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is at a voting location.
  • Explicit false claims that people will be infected by COVID-19 (or another communicable disease) if they participate in the voting process.
  • False claims about current conditions at a U.S. voting location that would make it impossible to vote, as verified by an election authority.
We have additional policies intended to cover calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, and calls for coordinated interference in elections, which are represented in other sections of our Community Standards.
For the following content, we include an informative label:
Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead.
  • Content Digitally Created or Altered that May Mislead. For content that does not otherwise violate the Community Standards, we may place an informative label on the face of content – or reject content submitted as an advertisement – when the content is a photorealistic image or video, or realistic sounding audio, that was digitally created or altered and creates a particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of public importance.
Policy Rationale
Misinformation is different from other types of speech addressed in our Community Standards because there is no way to articulate a comprehensive list of what is prohibited. With graphic violence or hate speech, for instance, our policies specify the speech we prohibit, and even persons who disagree with those policies can follow them. With misinformation, however, we cannot provide such a line. The world is changing constantly, and what is true one minute may not be true the next minute. People also have different levels of information about the world around them, and may believe something is true when it is not. A policy that simply prohibits “misinformation” would not provide useful notice to the people who use our services and would be unenforceable, as we don’t have perfect access to information.
Instead, our policies articulate different categories of misinformation and try to provide clear guidance about how we treat that speech when we see it. For each category, our approach reflects our attempt to balance our values of expression, safety, dignity, authenticity, and privacy.
We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes. In determining what constitutes misinformation in these categories, we partner with independent experts who possess knowledge and expertise to assess the truth of the content and whether it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent harm. This includes, for instance, partnering with human rights organizations with a presence on the ground in a country to determine the truth of a rumor about civil conflict.
For all other misinformation, we focus on reducing its prevalence or creating an environment that fosters a productive dialogue. We know that people often use misinformation in harmless ways, such as to exaggerate a point (“This team has the worst record in the history of the sport!”) or in humor or satire (“My husband just won Husband of the Year.”) They also may share their experience through stories that contain inaccuracies. In some cases, people share deeply-held personal opinions that others consider false or share information that they believe to be true but others consider incomplete or misleading.
Recognizing how common such speech is, we focus on slowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation, and directing users to authoritative information. As part of that effort, we partner with third-party fact checking organizations in many parts of the world to review and rate the accuracy of the most viral content on our platforms (see hereto learn more about how our fact-checking program works)and here for our approach in the United States). We also provide resources to increase media and digital literacy so people can decide what to read, trust, and share themselves. We require people to disclose, using our AI-disclosure tool, whenever they post organic content with photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so. We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance.
Finally, we prohibit content and behavior in other areas that often overlap with the spread of misinformation. For example, our Community Standards prohibit fake accounts, fraud, and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
As online and offline environments change and evolve, we will continue to evolve these policies. Accounts that repeatedly share the misinformation listed below may, in addition to having their content enforced on in accordance with this policy, receive decreased distribution, limitations on their ability to advertise, or be removed from our platforms. Additional information on what happens when Meta removes content can be found here.
Guidelines
Misinformation we remove:
We remove the following types of misinformation:
I. Physical Harm or Violence
We remove misinformation or unverifiable rumors that expert partners have determined are likely to directly contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm to people. We define misinformation as content with a claim that is determined to be false by an authoritative third party. We define an unverifiable rumor as a claim whose source expert partners confirm is extremely hard or impossible to trace, for which authoritative sources are absent, where there is not enough specificity for the claim to be debunked, or where the claim is too incredulous or too irrational to be believed.
We know that sometimes misinformation that might appear benign could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline harm, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, or other physical harm. We work with a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian organizations, and international organizations that have expertise in these local dynamics.
In countries experiencing a heightened risk of societal violence, we work proactively with local partners to understand which false claims may directly contribute to a risk of imminent physical harm. We then work to identify and remove content making those claims on our platform. For example, in consultation with local experts, we may remove out-of-context media falsely claiming to depict acts of violence, victims or perpetrators of violence, weapons, or military hardware.
II. Harmful Health Misinformation
We consult with leading health organizations to identify health misinformation likely to directly contribute to imminent harm to public health and safety. The harmful health misinformation that we remove includes the following:
  • Misinformation about vaccines. We remove misinformation primarily about vaccines when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to imminent vaccine refusals. They include:
    • Vaccines cause autism (Ex: “Increased vaccinations are why so many kids have autism these days.”)
    • Vaccines cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Ex: “Don’t you know vaccines cause SIDS?”
    • Vaccines cause the disease against which they are meant to protect, or cause the person receiving the vaccine to be more likely to get the disease (Ex: “Taking a vaccine actually makes you more likely to get the disease since there’s a strain of the disease inside. Beware!”)
    • Vaccines or their ingredients are deadly, toxic, poisonous, harmful, or dangerous (Ex: “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don’t mind putting poison in your body.”)
    • Natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity (Ex: “It’s safest to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.”)
    • It is dangerous to get several vaccines in a short period of time, even if that timing is medically recommended (Ex: “Never take more than one vaccine at the same time, that is dangerous - I don’t care what your doctor tells you!”)
    • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease against which they purport to protect. However, for the COVID-19, flu, and malaria vaccines, we do not remove claims that those vaccines are not effective in preventing someone from contracting those viruses. (Ex’s: Remove – “The polio vaccine doesn’t do anything to stop you from getting the disease”; Remove – “Vaccines actually don’t do anything to stop you from getting diseases”; Allow – “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19, that’s why you still need to socially distance and wear a mask when you’re around others.”)
    • Acquiring measles cannot cause death (requires additional information and/or context) (Ex: “Don’t worry about whether you get measles, it can’t be fatal.”)
    • Vitamin C is as effective as vaccines in preventing diseases for which vaccines exist.
  • Misinformation about health during public health emergencies. We remove misinformation during public health emergencies when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. We identify public health emergencies in partnership with global and local health authorities.
  • Promoting or advocating for harmful miracle cures for health issues. These include treatments where the recommended application, in a health context, is likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, and the treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).
III. Voter or Census Interference
In an effort to promote election and census integrity, we remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes. This includes the following:
  • Misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation.
  • Misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.
  • Misinformation about whether a candidate is running or not.
  • Misinformation about who can participate in the census and what information or materials must be provided in order to participate.
  • Misinformation about government involvement in the census, including, where applicable, that an individual's census information will be shared with another (non-census) government agency.
  • False or unverified claims that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is at a voting location.
  • Explicit false claims that people will be infected by COVID-19 (or another communicable disease) if they participate in the voting process.
  • False claims about current conditions at a U.S. voting location that would make it impossible to vote, as verified by an election authority.
We have additional policies intended to cover calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, and calls for coordinated interference in elections, which are represented in other sections of our Community Standards.
For the following content, we include an informative label:
Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead.
  • Content Digitally Created or Altered that May Mislead. For content that does not otherwise violate the Community Standards, we may place an informative label on the face of content – or reject content submitted as an advertisement – when the content is a photorealistic image or video, or realistic sounding audio, that was digitally created or altered and creates a particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of public importance.
Policy Rationale
Misinformation is different from other types of speech addressed in our Community Standards because there is no way to articulate a comprehensive list of what is prohibited. With graphic violence or hate speech, for instance, our policies specify the speech we prohibit, and even persons who disagree with those policies can follow them. With misinformation, however, we cannot provide such a line. The world is changing constantly, and what is true one minute may not be true the next minute. People also have different levels of information about the world around them, and may believe something is true when it is not. A policy that simply prohibits “misinformation” would not provide useful notice to the people who use our services and would be unenforceable, as we don’t have perfect access to information.
Instead, our policies articulate different categories of misinformation and try to provide clear guidance about how we treat that speech when we see it. For each category, our approach reflects our attempt to balance our values of expression, safety, dignity, authenticity, and privacy.
We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes. In determining what constitutes misinformation in these categories, we partner with independent experts who possess knowledge and expertise to assess the truth of the content and whether it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent harm. This includes, for instance, partnering with human rights organizations with a presence on the ground in a country to determine the truth of a rumor about civil conflict, and partnering with health organizations during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
For all other misinformation, we focus on reducing its prevalence or creating an environment that fosters a productive dialogue. We know that people often use misinformation in harmless ways, such as to exaggerate a point (“This team has the worst record in the history of the sport!”) or in humor or satire (“My husband just won Husband of the Year.”) They also may share their experience through stories that contain inaccuracies. In some cases, people share deeply-held personal opinions that others consider false or share information that they believe to be true but others consider incomplete or misleading.
Recognizing how common such speech is, we focus on slowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation, and directing users to authoritative information. As part of that effort, we partner with third-party fact checking organizations to review and rate the accuracy of the most viral content on our platforms (see here to learn more about how our fact-checking program works). We also provide resources to increase media and digital literacy so people can decide what to read, trust, and share themselves. We require people to disclose, using our AI-disclosure tool, whenever they post organic content with photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so. We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance.
Finally, we prohibit content and behavior in other areas that often overlap with the spread of misinformation. For example, our Community Standards prohibit fake accounts, fraud, and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
As online and offline environments change and evolve, we will continue to evolve these policies. Pages, Groups, Profiles, and Instagram accountsAccounts that repeatedly share the misinformation listed below may, in addition to having their content removedenforced on in accordance with this policy, receive decreased distribution, limitations on their ability to advertise, or be removed from our platforms. Additional information on what happens when FacebookMeta removes content can be found here.
Guidelines
Misinformation we remove:
We remove the following types of misinformation:
I. Physical Harm or Violence
We remove misinformation or unverifiable rumors that expert partners have determined are likely to directly contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm to people. We define misinformation as content with a claim that is determined to be false by an authoritative third party. We define an unverifiable rumor as a claim whose source expert partners confirm is extremely hard or impossible to trace, for which authoritative sources are absent, where there is not enough specificity for the claim to be debunked, or where the claim is too incredulous or too irrational to be believed.
We know that sometimes misinformation that might appear benign could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline harm, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, or other physical harm. We work with a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian organizations, and international organizations that have expertise in these local dynamics.
In countries experiencing a heightened risk of societal violence, we work proactively with local partners to understand which false claims may directly contribute to a risk of imminent physical harm. We then work to identify and remove content making those claims on our platform. For example, in consultation with local experts, we may remove out-of-context media falsely claiming to depict acts of violence, victims or perpetrators of violence, weapons, or military hardware.
II. Harmful Health Misinformation
We consult with leading health organizations to identify health misinformation likely to directly contribute to imminent harm to public health and safety. The harmful health misinformation that we remove includes the following:
  • Misinformation about vaccines. We remove misinformation primarily about vaccines when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to imminent vaccine refusals. They include:
    • Vaccines cause autism (Ex: “Increased vaccinations are why so many kids have autism these days.”)
    • Vaccines cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Ex: “Don’t you know vaccines cause SIDS?”
    • Vaccines cause the disease against which they are meant to protect, or cause the person receiving the vaccine to be more likely to get the disease (Ex: “Taking a vaccine actually makes you more likely to get the disease since there’s a strain of the disease inside. Beware!”)
    • Vaccines or their ingredients are deadly, toxic, poisonous, harmful, or dangerous (Ex: “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don’t mind putting poison in your body.”)
    • Natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity (Ex: “It’s safest to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.”)
    • It is dangerous to get several vaccines in a short period of time, even if that timing is medically recommended (Ex: “Never take more than one vaccine at the same time, that is dangerous - I don’t care what your doctor tells you!”)
    • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease against which they purport to protect. However, for the COVID-19, flu, and malaria vaccines, we do not remove claims that those vaccines are not effective in preventing someone from contracting those viruses. (Ex’s: Remove – “The polio vaccine doesn’t do anything to stop you from getting the disease”; Remove – “Vaccines actually don’t do anything to stop you from getting diseases”; Allow – “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19, that’s why you still need to socially distance and wear a mask when you’re around others.”)
    • Acquiring measles cannot cause death (requires additional information and/or context) (Ex: “Don’t worry about whether you get measles, it can’t be fatal.”)
    • Vitamin C is as effective as vaccines in preventing diseases for which vaccines exist.
  • Misinformation about health during public health emergencies. We remove misinformation during public health emergencies when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. We identify public health emergencies in partnership with global and local health authorities.
  • Promoting or advocating for harmful miracle cures for health issues. These include treatments where the recommended application, in a health context, is likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, and the treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).
III. Voter or Census Interference
In an effort to promote election and census integrity, we remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes. This includes the following:
  • Misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation.
  • Misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.
  • Misinformation about whether a candidate is running or not.
  • Misinformation about who can participate in the census and what information or materials must be provided in order to participate.
  • Misinformation about government involvement in the census, including, where applicable, that an individual's census information will be shared with another (non-census) government agency.
  • False or unverified claims that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is at a voting location.
  • Explicit false claims that people will be infected by COVID-19 (or another communicable disease) if they participate in the voting process.
  • False claims about current conditions at a U.S. voting location that would make it impossible to vote, as verified by an election authority.
We have additional policies intended to cover calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, and calls for coordinated interference in elections, which are represented in other sections of our Community Standards.
IV. Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead, particularly in the case of video content. We remove this content because it can go viral quickly and experts advise that false beliefs regarding manipulated media often cannot be corrected through further discourse.
We remove videos under this policy if specific criteria are met: (1) the video has been edited or synthesized, beyond adjustments for clarity or quality, in ways that are not apparent to an average person, and would likely mislead an average person to believe a subject of the video said words that they did not say; and (2) the video is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning, including deep learning techniques (e.g., a technical deepfake), that merges, combines, replaces, and/or superimposes content onto a video, creating a video that appears authentic.
For the following content, we include an informative label:
Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead.
  • Content Digitally Created or Altered that May Mislead. For content that does not otherwise violate the Community Standards, we may place an informative label on the face of content – or reject content submitted as an advertisement – when the content is a photorealistic image or video, or realistic sounding audio, that was digitally created or altered and creates a particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of public importance.
Policy Rationale
Misinformation is different from other types of speech addressed in our Community Standards because there is no way to articulate a comprehensive list of what is prohibited. With graphic violence or hate speech, for instance, our policies specify the speech we prohibit, and even persons who disagree with those policies can follow them. With misinformation, however, we cannot provide such a line. The world is changing constantly, and what is true one minute may not be true the next minute. People also have different levels of information about the world around them, and may believe something is true when it is not. A policy that simply prohibits “misinformation” would not provide useful notice to the people who use our services and would be unenforceable, as we don’t have perfect access to information.
Instead, our policies articulate different categories of misinformation and try to provide clear guidance about how we treat that speech when we see it. For each category, our approach reflects our attempt to balance our values of expression, safety, dignity, authenticity, and privacy.
We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes and certain highly deceptive manipulated media. In determining what constitutes misinformation in these categories, we partner with independent experts who possess knowledge and expertise to assess the truth of the content and whether it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent harm. This includes, for instance, partnering with human rights organizations with a presence on the ground in a country to determine the truth of a rumor about civil conflict, and partnering with health organizations during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
For all other misinformation, we focus on reducing its prevalence or creating an environment that fosters a productive dialogue. We know that people often use misinformation in harmless ways, such as to exaggerate a point (“This team has the worst record in the history of the sport!”) or in humor or satire (“My husband just won Husband of the Year.”) They also may share their experience through stories that contain inaccuracies. In some cases, people share deeply-held personal opinions that others consider false or share information that they believe to be true but others consider incomplete or misleading.
Recognizing how common such speech is, we focus on slowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation, and directing users to authoritative information. As part of that effort, we partner with third-party fact checking organizations to review and rate the accuracy of the most viral content on our platforms (see here to learn more about how our fact-checking program works). We also provide resources to increase media and digital literacy so people can decide what to read, trust, and share themselves. We require people to disclose, using our AI-disclosure tool, whenever they post organic content with photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so. We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance.
Finally, we prohibit content and behavior in other areas that often overlap with the spread of misinformation. For example, our Community Standards prohibit fake accounts, fraud, and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
As online and offline environments change and evolve, we will continue to evolve these policies. Pages, Groups, Profiles, and Instagram accounts that repeatedly share the misinformation listed below may, in addition to having their content removed, receive decreased distribution, limitations on their ability to advertise, or be removed from our platforms. Additional information on what happens when Facebook removes content can be found here.
Misinformation we remove:
We remove the following types of misinformation:
I. Physical Harm or Violence
We remove misinformation or unverifiable rumors that expert partners have determined are likely to directly contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm to people. We define misinformation as content with a claim that is determined to be false by an authoritative third party. We define an unverifiable rumor as a claim whose source expert partners confirm is extremely hard or impossible to trace, for which authoritative sources are absent, where there is not enough specificity for the claim to be debunked, or where the claim is too incredulous or too irrational to be believed.
We know that sometimes misinformation that might appear benign could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline harm, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, or other physical harm. We work with a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian organizations, and international organizations that have expertise in these local dynamics.
In countries experiencing a heightened risk of societal violence, we work proactively with local partners to understand which false claims may directly contribute to a risk of imminent physical harm. We then work to identify and remove content making those claims on our platform. For example, in consultation with local experts, we may remove out-of-context media falsely claiming to depict acts of violence, victims or perpetrators of violence, weapons, or military hardware.
II. Harmful Health Misinformation
We consult with leading health organizations to identify health misinformation likely to directly contribute to imminent harm to public health and safety. The harmful health misinformation that we remove includes the following:
  • Misinformation about vaccines. We remove misinformation primarily about vaccines when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to imminent vaccine refusals. They include:
    • Vaccines cause autism (Ex: “Increased vaccinations are why so many kids have autism these days.”)
    • Vaccines cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Ex: “Don’t you know vaccines cause SIDS?”
    • Vaccines cause the disease against which they are meant to protect, or cause the person receiving the vaccine to be more likely to get the disease (Ex: “Taking a vaccine actually makes you more likely to get the disease since there’s a strain of the disease inside. Beware!”)
    • Vaccines or their ingredients are deadly, toxic, poisonous, harmful, or dangerous (Ex: “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don’t mind putting poison in your body.”)
    • Natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity (Ex: “It’s safest to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.”)
    • It is dangerous to get several vaccines in a short period of time, even if that timing is medically recommended (Ex: “Never take more than one vaccine at the same time, that is dangerous - I don’t care what your doctor tells you!”)
    • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease against which they purport to protect. However, for the COVID-19, flu, and malaria vaccines, we do not remove claims that those vaccines are not effective in preventing someone from contracting those viruses. (Ex’s: Remove – “The polio vaccine doesn’t do anything to stop you from getting the disease”; Remove – “Vaccines actually don’t do anything to stop you from getting diseases”; Allow – “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19, that’s why you still need to socially distance and wear a mask when you’re around others.”)
    • Acquiring measles cannot cause death (requires additional information and/or context) (Ex: “Don’t worry about whether you get measles, it can’t be fatal.”)
    • Vitamin C is as effective as vaccines in preventing diseases for which vaccines exist.
  • Misinformation about health during public health emergencies. We remove misinformation during public health emergencies when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. We identify public health emergencies in partnership with global and local health authorities.
  • Promoting or advocating for harmful miracle cures for health issues. These include treatments where the recommended application, in a health context, is likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, and the treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).
III. Voter or Census Interference
In an effort to promote election and census integrity, we remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes. This includes the following:
  • Misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation.
  • Misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.
  • Misinformation about whether a candidate is running or not.
  • Misinformation about who can participate in the census and what information or materials must be provided in order to participate.
  • Misinformation about government involvement in the census, including, where applicable, that an individual's census information will be shared with another (non-census) government agency.
  • False or unverified claims that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is at a voting location.
  • Explicit false claims that people will be infected by COVID-19 (or another communicable disease) if they participate in the voting process.
  • False claims about current conditions at a U.S. voting location that would make it impossible to vote, as verified by an election authority.
We have additional policies intended to cover calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, and calls for coordinated interference in elections, which are represented in other sections of our Community Standards.
IV. Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead, particularly in the case of video content. We remove this content because it can go viral quickly and experts advise that false beliefs regarding manipulated media often cannot be corrected through further discourse.
We remove videos under this policy if specific criteria are met: (1) the video has been edited or synthesized, beyond adjustments for clarity or quality, in ways that are not apparent to an average person, and would likely mislead an average person to believe a subject of the video said words that they did not say; and (2) the video is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning, including deep learning techniques (e.g., a technical deepfake), that merges, combines, replaces, and/or superimposes content onto a video, creating a video that appears authentic.
For the following content, we include an informative label:
Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead.
  • Content Digitally Created or Altered that May Mislead. For content that does not otherwise violate the Community Standards, we may place an informative label on the face of content – or reject content submitted as an advertisement – when the content is a photorealistic image or video, or realistic sounding audio, that was digitally created or altered and creates a particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of public importance.
Policy Rationale
Misinformation is different from other types of speech addressed in our Community Standards because there is no way to articulate a comprehensive list of what is prohibited. With graphic violence or hate speech, for instance, our policies specify the speech we prohibit, and even persons who disagree with those policies can follow them. With misinformation, however, we cannot provide such a line. The world is changing constantly, and what is true one minute may not be true the next minute. People also have different levels of information about the world around them, and may believe something is true when it is not. A policy that simply prohibits “misinformation” would not provide useful notice to the people who use our services and would be unenforceable, as we don’t have perfect access to information.
Instead, our policies articulate different categories of misinformation and try to provide clear guidance about how we treat that speech when we see it. For each category, our approach reflects our attempt to balance our values of expression, safety, dignity, authenticity, and privacy.
We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes and certain highly deceptive manipulated media. In determining what constitutes misinformation in these categories, we partner with independent experts who possess knowledge and expertise to assess the truth of the content and whether it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent harm. This includes, for instance, partnering with human rights organizations with a presence on the ground in a country to determine the truth of a rumor about civil conflict, and partnering with health organizations during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
For all other misinformation, we focus on reducing its prevalence or creating an environment that fosters a productive dialogue. We know that people often use misinformation in harmless ways, such as to exaggerate a point (“This team has the worst record in the history of the sport!”) or in humor or satire (“My husband just won Husband of the Year.”) They also may share their experience through stories that contain inaccuracies. In some cases, people share deeply-held personal opinions that others consider false or share information that they believe to be true but others consider incomplete or misleading.
Recognizing how common such speech is, we focus on slowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation, and directing users to authoritative information. As part of that effort, we partner with third-party fact checking organizations to review and rate the accuracy of the most viral content on our platforms (see here to learn more about how our fact-checking program works). We also provide resources to increase media and digital literacy so people can decide what to read, trust, and share themselves. We require people to disclose, using our AI-disclosure tool, whenever they post organic content with photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so.We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance.
Finally, we prohibit content and behavior in other areas that often overlap with the spread of misinformation. For example, our Community Standards prohibit fake accounts, fraud, and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
As online and offline environments change and evolve, we will continue to evolve these policies. Pages, Groups, Profiles, and Instagram accounts that repeatedly share the misinformation listed below may, in addition to having their content removed, receive decreased distribution, limitations on their ability to advertise, or be removed from our platforms. Additional information on what happens when Facebook removes content can be found here.
Misinformation we remove:
We remove the following types of misinformation:
I. Physical Harm or Violence
We remove misinformation or unverifiable rumors that expert partners have determined are likely to directly contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm to people. We define misinformation as content with a claim that is determined to be false by an authoritative third party. We define an unverifiable rumor as a claim whose source expert partners confirm is extremely hard or impossible to trace, for which authoritative sources are absent, where there is not enough specificity for the claim to be debunked, or where the claim is too incredulous or too irrational to be believed.
We know that sometimes misinformation that might appear benign could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline harm, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, or other physical harm. We work with a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian organizations, and international organizations that have expertise in these local dynamics.
In countries experiencing a heightened risk of societal violence, we work proactively with local partners to understand which false claims may directly contribute to a risk of imminent physical harm. We then work to identify and remove content making those claims on our platform. For example, in consultation with local experts, we may remove out-of-context media falsely claiming to depict acts of violence, victims or perpetrators of violence, weapons, or military hardware.
II. Harmful Health Misinformation
We consult with leading health organizations to identify health misinformation likely to directly contribute to imminent harm to public health and safety. The harmful health misinformation that we remove includes the following:
  • Misinformation about vaccines. We remove misinformation primarily about vaccines when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to imminent vaccine refusals. They include:
    • Vaccines cause autism (Ex: “Increased vaccinations are why so many kids have autism these days.”)
    • Vaccines cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Ex: “Don’t you know vaccines cause SIDS?”
    • Vaccines cause the disease against which they are meant to protect, or cause the person receiving the vaccine to be more likely to get the disease (Ex: “Taking a vaccine actually makes you more likely to get the disease since there’s a strain of the disease inside. Beware!”)
    • Vaccines or their ingredients are deadly, toxic, poisonous, harmful, or dangerous (Ex: “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don’t mind putting poison in your body.”)
    • Natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity (Ex: “It’s safest to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.”)
    • It is dangerous to get several vaccines in a short period of time, even if that timing is medically recommended (Ex: “Never take more than one vaccine at the same time, that is dangerous - I don’t care what your doctor tells you!”)
    • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease against which they purport to protect. However, for the COVID-19, flu, and malaria vaccines, we do not remove claims that those vaccines are not effective in preventing someone from contracting those viruses. (Ex’s: Remove – “The polio vaccine doesn’t do anything to stop you from getting the disease”; Remove – “Vaccines actually don’t do anything to stop you from getting diseases”; Allow – “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19, that’s why you still need to socially distance and wear a mask when you’re around others.”)
    • Acquiring measles cannot cause death (requires additional information and/or context) (Ex: “Don’t worry about whether you get measles, it can’t be fatal.”)
    • Vitamin C is as effective as vaccines in preventing diseases for which vaccines exist.
  • Misinformation about health during public health emergencies. We remove misinformation during public health emergencies when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. We identify public health emergencies in partnership with global and local health authorities. This currently includes certain false claims related to COVID-19 in countries still experiencing a publicly announced state of emergency regarding the virus. Click here for a complete set of rules regarding what misinformation we do not allow regarding COVID-19 and vaccines.
  • Promoting or advocating for harmful miracle cures for health issues. These include treatments where the recommended application, in a health context, is likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, and the treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).
III. Voter or Census Interference
In an effort to promote election and census integrity, we remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes. This includes the following:
  • Misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation.
  • Misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.
  • Misinformation about whether a candidate is running or not.
  • Misinformation about who can participate in the census and what information or materials must be provided in order to participate.
  • Misinformation about government involvement in the census, including, where applicable, that an individual's census information will be shared with another (non-census) government agency.
  • False or unverified claims that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is at a voting location.
  • Explicit false claims that people will be infected by COVID-19 (or another communicable disease) if they participate in the voting process.
  • False claims about current conditions at a U.S. voting location that would make it impossible to vote, as verified by an election authority.
We have additional policies intended to cover calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, and calls for coordinated interference in elections, which are represented in other sections of our Community Standards.
IV. Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead, particularly in the case of video content. We remove this content because it can go viral quickly and experts advise that false beliefs regarding manipulated media often cannot be corrected through further discourse.
We remove videos under this policy if specific criteria are met: (1) the video has been edited or synthesized, beyond adjustments for clarity or quality, in ways that are not apparent to an average person, and would likely mislead an average person to believe a subject of the video said words that they did not say; and (2) the video is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning, including deep learning techniques (e.g., a technical deepfake), that merges, combines, replaces, and/or superimposes content onto a video, creating a video that appears authentic.
For the following content, we include an informative label:
Content Digitally Created or Altered that May Mislead
For content that does not otherwise violate the Community Standards, we may place an informative label on the face of content – or reject content submitted as an advertisement – when the content is a photorealistic image or video, or realistic sounding audio, that was digitally created or altered and creates a particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of public importance.
Policy Rationale
Misinformation is different from other types of speech addressed in our Community Standards because there is no way to articulate a comprehensive list of what is prohibited. With graphic violence or hate speech, for instance, our policies specify the speech we prohibit, and even persons who disagree with those policies can follow them. With misinformation, however, we cannot provide such a line. The world is changing constantly, and what is true one minute may not be true the next minute. People also have different levels of information about the world around them, and may believe something is true when it is not. A policy that simply prohibits “misinformation” would not provide useful notice to the people who use our services and would be unenforceable, as we don’t have perfect access to information.
Instead, our policies articulate different categories of misinformation and try to provide clear guidance about how we treat that speech when we see it. For each category, our approach reflects our attempt to balance our values of expression, safety, dignity, authenticity, and privacy.
We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes and certain highly deceptive manipulated media. In determining what constitutes misinformation in these categories, we partner with independent experts who possess knowledge and expertise to assess the truth of the content and whether it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent harm. This includes, for instance, partnering with human rights organizations with a presence on the ground in a country to determine the truth of a rumor about civil conflict, and partnering with health organizations during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
For all other misinformation, we focus on reducing its prevalence or creating an environment that fosters a productive dialogue. We know that people often use misinformation in harmless ways, such as to exaggerate a point (“This team has the worst record in the history of the sport!”) or in humor or satire (“My husband just won Husband of the Year.”) They also may share their experience through stories that contain inaccuracies. In some cases, people share deeply-held personal opinions that others consider false or share information that they believe to be true but others consider incomplete or misleading.
Recognizing how common such speech is, we focus on slowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation, and directing users to authoritative information. As part of that effort, we partner with third-party fact checking organizations to review and rate the accuracy of the most viral content on our platforms (see here to learn more about how our fact-checking program works). We also provide resources to increase media and digital literacy so people can decide what to read, trust, and share themselves. We require people to disclose, using our AI-disclosure tool, whenever they post organic content with photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so.We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance.
Finally, we prohibit content and behavior in other areas that often overlap with the spread of misinformation. For example, our Community Standards prohibit fake accounts, fraud, and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
As online and offline environments change and evolve, we will continue to evolve these policies. Pages, Groups, Profiles, and Instagram accounts that repeatedly share the misinformation listed below may, in addition to having their content removed, receive decreased distribution, limitations on their ability to advertise, or be removed from our platforms. Additional information on what happens when Facebook removes content can be found here.
Misinformation we remove:
We remove the following types of misinformation:
I. Physical Harm or Violence
We remove misinformation or unverifiable rumors that expert partners have determined are likely to directly contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm to people. We define misinformation as content with a claim that is determined to be false by an authoritative third party. We define an unverifiable rumor as a claim whose source expert partners confirm is extremely hard or impossible to trace, for which authoritative sources are absent, where there is not enough specificity for the claim to be debunked, or where the claim is too incredulous or too irrational to be believed.
We know that sometimes misinformation that might appear benign could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline harm, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, or other physical harm. We work with a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian organizations, and international organizations that have expertise in these local dynamics.
In countries experiencing a heightened risk of societal violence, we work proactively with local partners to understand which false claims may directly contribute to a risk of imminent physical harm. We then work to identify and remove content making those claims on our platform. For example, in consultation with local experts, we may remove out-of-context media falsely claiming to depict acts of violence, victims or perpetrators of violence, weapons, or military hardware.
II. Harmful Health Misinformation
We consult with leading health organizations to identify health misinformation likely to directly contribute to imminent harm to public health and safety. The harmful health misinformation that we remove includes the following:
  • Misinformation about vaccines. We remove misinformation primarily about vaccines when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to imminent vaccine refusals. They include:
    • Vaccines cause autism (Ex: “Increased vaccinations are why so many kids have autism these days.”)
    • Vaccines cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Ex: “Don’t you know vaccines cause SIDS?”
    • Vaccines cause the disease against which they are meant to protect, or cause the person receiving the vaccine to be more likely to get the disease (Ex: “Taking a vaccine actually makes you more likely to get the disease since there’s a strain of the disease inside. Beware!”)
    • Vaccines or their ingredients are deadly, toxic, poisonous, harmful, or dangerous (Ex: “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don’t mind putting poison in your body.”)
    • Natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity (Ex: “It’s safest to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.”)
    • It is dangerous to get several vaccines in a short period of time, even if that timing is medically recommended (Ex: “Never take more than one vaccine at the same time, that is dangerous - I don’t care what your doctor tells you!”)
    • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease against which they purport to protect. However, for the COVID-19, flu, and malaria vaccines, we do not remove claims that those vaccines are not effective in preventing someone from contracting those viruses. (Ex’s: Remove – “The polio vaccine doesn’t do anything to stop you from getting the disease”; Remove – “Vaccines actually don’t do anything to stop you from getting diseases”; Allow – “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19, that’s why you still need to socially distance and wear a mask when you’re around others.”)
    • Acquiring measles cannot cause death (requires additional information and/or context) (Ex: “Don’t worry about whether you get measles, it can’t be fatal.”)
    • Vitamin C is as effective as vaccines in preventing diseases for which vaccines exist.
  • Misinformation about health during public health emergencies. We remove misinformation during public health emergencies when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. We identify public health emergencies in partnership with global and local health authorities. This currently includes certain false claims related to COVID-19 in countries still experiencing a publicly announced state of emergency regarding the virus. Click here for a complete set of rules regarding what misinformation we do not allow regarding COVID-19 and vaccines.
  • Promoting or advocating for harmful miracle cures for health issues. These include treatments where the recommended application, in a health context, is likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, and the treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).
III. Voter or Census Interference
In an effort to promote election and census integrity, we remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes. This includes the following:
  • Misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation.
  • Misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.
  • Misinformation about whether a candidate is running or not.
  • Misinformation about who can participate in the census and what information or materials must be provided in order to participate.
  • Misinformation about government involvement in the census, including, where applicable, that an individual's census information will be shared with another (non-census) government agency.
  • False or unverified claims that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is at a voting location.
  • Explicit false claims that people will be infected by COVID-19 (or another communicable disease) if they participate in the voting process.
  • False claims about current conditions at a U.S. voting location that would make it impossible to vote, as verified by an election authority.
We have additional policies intended to cover calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, and calls for coordinated interference in elections, which are represented in other sections of our Community Standards.
IV. Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead, particularly in the case of video content. We remove this content because it can go viral quickly and experts advise that false beliefs regarding manipulated media often cannot be corrected through further discourse.
We remove videos under this policy if specific criteria are met: (1) the video has been edited or synthesized, beyond adjustments for clarity or quality, in ways that are not apparent to an average person, and would likely mislead an average person to believe a subject of the video said words that they did not say; and (2) the video is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning, including deep learning techniques (e.g., a technical deepfake), that merges, combines, replaces, and/or superimposes content onto a video, creating a video that appears authentic.
For the following content, we include an informative label:
Content Digitally Created or Altered that May Mislead
For content that does not otherwise violate the Community Standards, we may place an informative label on the face of content – or reject content submitted as an advertisement – when the content is a photorealistic image or video, or realistic sounding audio, that was digitally created or altered and creates a particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of public importance.
Policy Rationale
Misinformation is different from other types of speech addressed in our Community Standards because there is no way to articulate a comprehensive list of what is prohibited. With graphic violence or hate speech, for instance, our policies specify the speech we prohibit, and even persons who disagree with those policies can follow them. With misinformation, however, we cannot provide such a line. The world is changing constantly, and what is true one minute may not be true the next minute. People also have different levels of information about the world around them, and may believe something is true when it is not. A policy that simply prohibits “misinformation” would not provide useful notice to the people who use our services and would be unenforceable, as we don’t have perfect access to information.
Instead, our policies articulate different categories of misinformation and try to provide clear guidance about how we treat that speech when we see it. For each category, our approach reflects our attempt to balance our values of expression, safety, dignity, authenticity, and privacy.
We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes and certain highly deceptive manipulated media. In determining what constitutes misinformation in these categories, we partner with independent experts who possess knowledge and expertise to assess the truth of the content and whether it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent harm. This includes, for instance, partnering with human rights organizations with a presence on the ground in a country to determine the truth of a rumor about civil conflict, and partnering with health organizations during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
For all other misinformation, we focus on reducing its prevalence or creating an environment that fosters a productive dialogue. We know that people often use misinformation in harmless ways, such as to exaggerate a point (“This team has the worst record in the history of the sport!”) or in humor or satire (“My husband just won Husband of the Year.”) They also may share their experience through stories that contain inaccuracies. In some cases, people share deeply-held personal opinions that others consider false or share information that they believe to be true but others consider incomplete or misleading.
Recognizing how common such speech is, we focus on slowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation, and directing users to authoritative information. As part of that effort, we partner with third-party fact checking organizations to review and rate the accuracy of the most viral content on our platforms (see here to learn more about how our fact-checking program works). We also provide resources to increase media and digital literacy so people can decide what to read, trust, and share themselves. We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance.
Finally, we prohibit content and behavior in other areas that often overlap with the spread of misinformation. For example, our Community Standards prohibit fake accounts, fraud, and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
As online and offline environments change and evolve, we will continue to evolve these policies. Pages, Groups, Profiles, and Instagram accounts that repeatedly share the misinformation listed below may, in addition to having their content removed, receive decreased distribution, limitations on their ability to advertise, or be removed from our platforms. Additional information on what happens when Facebook removes content can be found here.
Misinformation we remove:
We remove the following types of misinformation:
I. Physical Harm or Violence
We remove misinformation or unverifiable rumors that expert partners have determined are likely to directly contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm to people. We define misinformation as content with a claim that is determined to be false by an authoritative third party. We define an unverifiable rumor as a claim whose source expert partners confirm is extremely hard or impossible to trace, for which authoritative sources are absent, where there is not enough specificity for the claim to be debunked, or where the claim is too incredulous or too irrational to be believed.
We know that sometimes misinformation that might appear benign could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline harm, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, or other physical harm. We work with a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian organizations, and international organizations that have expertise in these local dynamics.
In countries experiencing a heightened risk of societal violence, we work proactively with local partners to understand which false claims may directly contribute to a risk of imminent physical harm. We then work to identify and remove content making those claims on our platform. For example, in consultation with local experts, we may remove out-of-context media falsely claiming to depict acts of violence, victims or perpetrators of violence, weapons, or military hardware.
II. Harmful Health Misinformation
We consult with leading health organizations to identify health misinformation likely to directly contribute to imminent harm to public health and safety. The harmful health misinformation that we remove includes the following:
  • Misinformation about vaccines. We remove misinformation primarily about vaccines when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to imminent vaccine refusals. They include:
    • Vaccines cause autism (Ex: “Increased vaccinations are why so many kids have autism these days.”)
    • Vaccines cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Ex: “Don’t you know vaccines cause SIDS?”
    • Vaccines cause the disease against which they are meant to protect, or cause the person receiving the vaccine to be more likely to get the disease (Ex: “Taking a vaccine actually makes you more likely to get the disease since there’s a strain of the disease inside. Beware!”)
    • Vaccines or their ingredients are deadly, toxic, poisonous, harmful, or dangerous (Ex: “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don’t mind putting poison in your body.”)
    • Natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity (Ex: “It’s safest to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.”)
    • It is dangerous to get several vaccines in a short period of time, even if that timing is medically recommended (Ex: “Never take more than one vaccine at the same time, that is dangerous - I don’t care what your doctor tells you!”)
    • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease against which they purport to protect. However, for the COVID-19, flu, and malaria vaccines, we do not remove claims that those vaccines are not effective in preventing someone from contracting those viruses. (Ex’s: Remove – “The polio vaccine doesn’t do anything to stop you from getting the disease”; Remove – “Vaccines actually don’t do anything to stop you from getting diseases”; Allow – “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19, that’s why you still need to socially distance and wear a mask when you’re around others.”)
    • Acquiring measles cannot cause death (requires additional information and/or context) (Ex: “Don’t worry about whether you get measles, it can’t be fatal.”)
    • Vitamin C is as effective as vaccines in preventing diseases for which vaccines exist.
  • Misinformation about health during public health emergencies. We remove misinformation during public health emergencies when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. We identify public health emergencies in partnership with global and local health authorities. This currently includes certain false claims related to COVID-19 in countries still experiencing a publicly announced state of emergency regarding the virus. Click here for a complete set of rules regarding what misinformation we do not allow regarding COVID-19 and vaccines.
  • Promoting or advocating for harmful miracle cures for health issues. These include treatments where the recommended application, in a health context, is likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, and the treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).
III. Voter or Census Interference
In an effort to promote election and census integrity, we remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes. This includes the following:
  • Misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation.
  • Misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.
  • Misinformation about whether a candidate is running or not.
  • Misinformation about who can participate in the census and what information or materials must be provided in order to participate.
  • Misinformation about government involvement in the census, including, where applicable, that an individual's census information will be shared with another (non-census) government agency.
  • False or unverified claims that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is at a voting location.
  • Explicit false claims that people will be infected by COVID-19 (or another communicable disease) if they participate in the voting process.
  • False claims about current conditions at a U.S. voting location that would make it impossible to vote, as verified by an election authority.
We have additional policies intended to cover calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, and calls for coordinated interference in elections, which are represented in other sections of our Community Standards.
IV. Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead, particularly in the case of video content. We remove this content because it can go viral quickly and experts advise that false beliefs regarding manipulated media often cannot be corrected through further discourse.
We remove videos under this policy if specific criteria are met: (1) the video has been edited or synthesized, beyond adjustments for clarity or quality, in ways that are not apparent to an average person, and would likely mislead an average person to believe a subject of the video said words that they did not say; and (2) the video is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning, including deep learning techniques (e.g., a technical deepfake), that merges, combines, replaces, and/or superimposes content onto a video, creating a video that appears authentic.
For the following content, we include an informative label:
Content Digitally Created or Altered that May Mislead
For content that does not otherwise violate the Community Standards, we may place an informative label on the face of content – or reject content submitted as an advertisement – when the content is a photorealistic image or video, or realistic sounding audio, that was digitally created or altered and creates a particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of public importance.
Policy Rationale
Misinformation is different from other types of speech addressed in our Community Standards because there is no way to articulate a comprehensive list of what is prohibited. With graphic violence or hate speech, for instance, our policies specify the speech we prohibit, and even persons who disagree with those policies can follow them. With misinformation, however, we cannot provide such a line. The world is changing constantly, and what is true one minute may not be true the next minute. People also have different levels of information about the world around them, and may believe something is true when it is not. A policy that simply prohibits “misinformation” would not provide useful notice to the people who use our services and would be unenforceable, as we don’t have perfect access to information.
Instead, our policies articulate different categories of misinformation and try to provide clear guidance about how we treat that speech when we see it. For each category, our approach reflects our attempt to balance our values of expression, safety, dignity, authenticity, and privacy.
We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes. In determining what constitutes misinformation in these categories, we partner with independent experts who possess knowledge and expertise to assess the truth of the content and whether it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent harm. This includes, for instance, partnering with human rights organizations with a presence on the ground in a country to determine the truth of a rumor about civil conflict.
For all other misinformation, we focus on reducing its prevalence or creating an environment that fosters a productive dialogue. We know that people often use misinformation in harmless ways, such as to exaggerate a point (“This team has the worst record in the history of the sport!”) or in humor or satire (“My husband just won Husband of the Year.”) They also may share their experience through stories that contain inaccuracies. In some cases, people share deeply-held personal opinions that others consider false or share information that they believe to be true but others consider incomplete or misleading.
Recognizing how common such speech is, we focus on slowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation, and directing users to authoritative information. As part of that effort, we partner with third-party fact checking organizations to review and rate the accuracy of the most viral content on our platforms (see here to learn more about how our fact-checking program works). We also provide resources to increase media and digital literacy so people can decide what to read, trust, and share themselves. We require people to disclose, using our AI-disclosure tool, whenever they post organic content with photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so. We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance.
Finally, we prohibit content and behavior in other areas that often overlap with the spread of misinformation. For example, our Community Standards prohibit fake accounts, fraud, and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
As online and offline environments change and evolve, we will continue to evolve these policies. Accounts that repeatedly share the misinformation listed below may, in addition to having their content enforced on in accordance with this policy, receive decreased distribution, limitations on their ability to advertise, or be removed from our platforms. Additional information on what happens when Meta removes content can be found here.
Misinformation we remove:
We remove the following types of misinformation:
I. Physical Harm or Violence
We remove misinformation or unverifiable rumors that expert partners have determined are likely to directly contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm to people. We define misinformation as content with a claim that is determined to be false by an authoritative third party. We define an unverifiable rumor as a claim whose source expert partners confirm is extremely hard or impossible to trace, for which authoritative sources are absent, where there is not enough specificity for the claim to be debunked, or where the claim is too incredulous or too irrational to be believed.
We know that sometimes misinformation that might appear benign could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline harm, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, or other physical harm. We work with a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian organizations, and international organizations that have expertise in these local dynamics.
In countries experiencing a heightened risk of societal violence, we work proactively with local partners to understand which false claims may directly contribute to a risk of imminent physical harm. We then work to identify and remove content making those claims on our platform. For example, in consultation with local experts, we may remove out-of-context media falsely claiming to depict acts of violence, victims or perpetrators of violence, weapons, or military hardware.
II. Harmful Health Misinformation
We consult with leading health organizations to identify health misinformation likely to directly contribute to imminent harm to public health and safety. The harmful health misinformation that we remove includes the following:
  • Misinformation about vaccines. We remove misinformation primarily about vaccines when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to imminent vaccine refusals. They include:
    • Vaccines cause autism (Ex: “Increased vaccinations are why so many kids have autism these days.”)
    • Vaccines cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Ex: “Don’t you know vaccines cause SIDS?”
    • Vaccines cause the disease against which they are meant to protect, or cause the person receiving the vaccine to be more likely to get the disease (Ex: “Taking a vaccine actually makes you more likely to get the disease since there’s a strain of the disease inside. Beware!”)
    • Vaccines or their ingredients are deadly, toxic, poisonous, harmful, or dangerous (Ex: “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don’t mind putting poison in your body.”)
    • Natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity (Ex: “It’s safest to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.”)
    • It is dangerous to get several vaccines in a short period of time, even if that timing is medically recommended (Ex: “Never take more than one vaccine at the same time, that is dangerous - I don’t care what your doctor tells you!”)
    • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease against which they purport to protect. However, for the COVID-19, flu, and malaria vaccines, we do not remove claims that those vaccines are not effective in preventing someone from contracting those viruses. (Ex’s: Remove – “The polio vaccine doesn’t do anything to stop you from getting the disease”; Remove – “Vaccines actually don’t do anything to stop you from getting diseases”; Allow – “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19, that’s why you still need to socially distance and wear a mask when you’re around others.”)
    • Acquiring measles cannot cause death (requires additional information and/or context) (Ex: “Don’t worry about whether you get measles, it can’t be fatal.”)
    • Vitamin C is as effective as vaccines in preventing diseases for which vaccines exist.
  • Misinformation about health during public health emergencies. We remove misinformation during public health emergencies when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. We identify public health emergencies in partnership with global and local health authorities. This currently includes certain false claims related to COVID-19 in countries still experiencing a publicly announced state of emergency regarding the virus. Click here for a complete set of rules regarding what misinformation we do not allow regarding COVID-19 and vaccines.
  • Promoting or advocating for harmful miracle cures for health issues. These include treatments where the recommended application, in a health context, is likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, and the treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).
III. Voter or Census Interference
In an effort to promote election and census integrity, we remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes. This includes the following:
  • Misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation.
  • Misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.
  • Misinformation about whether a candidate is running or not.
  • Misinformation about who can participate in the census and what information or materials must be provided in order to participate.
  • Misinformation about government involvement in the census, including, where applicable, that an individual's census information will be shared with another (non-census) government agency.
  • Content falsely claimingFalse or unverified claimsthat the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is at a voting location.
  • Explicit false claims that people will be infected by COVID-19 (or another communicable disease) if they participate in the voting process.
  • False claims about current conditions at a U.S. voting location that would make it impossible to vote, as verified by an election authority.
We have additional policies intended to cover calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, and calls for coordinated interference in elections, which are represented in other sections of our Community Standards.
IV. Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead, particularly in the case of video content. We remove this content because it can go viral quickly and experts advise that false beliefs regarding manipulated media often cannot be corrected through further discourse.
We remove videos under this policy if specific criteria are met: (1) the video has been edited or synthesized, beyond adjustments for clarity or quality, in ways that are not apparent to an average person, and would likely mislead an average person to believe a subject of the video said words that they did not say; and (2) the video is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning, including deep learning techniques (e.g., a technical deepfake), that merges, combines, replaces, and/or superimposes content onto a video, creating a video that appears authentic.
Policy Rationale
Misinformation is different from other types of speech addressed in our Community Standards because there is no way to articulate a comprehensive list of what is prohibited. With graphic violence or hate speech, for instance, our policies specify the speech we prohibit, and even persons who disagree with those policies can follow them. With misinformation, however, we cannot provide such a line. The world is changing constantly, and what is true one minute may not be true the next minute. People also have different levels of information about the world around them, and may believe something is true when it is not. A policy that simply prohibits “misinformation” would not provide useful notice to the people who use our services and would be unenforceable, as we don’t have perfect access to information.
Instead, our policies articulate different categories of misinformation and try to provide clear guidance about how we treat that speech when we see it. For each category, our approach reflects our attempt to balance our values of expression, safety, dignity, authenticity, and privacy.
We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes. In determining what constitutes misinformation in these categories, we partner with independent experts who possess knowledge and expertise to assess the truth of the content and whether it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent harm. This includes, for instance, partnering with human rights organizations with a presence on the ground in a country to determine the truth of a rumor about civil conflict.
For all other misinformation, we focus on reducing its prevalence or creating an environment that fosters a productive dialogue. We know that people often use misinformation in harmless ways, such as to exaggerate a point (“This team has the worst record in the history of the sport!”) or in humor or satire (“My husband just won Husband of the Year.”) They also may share their experience through stories that contain inaccuracies. In some cases, people share deeply-held personal opinions that others consider false or share information that they believe to be true but others consider incomplete or misleading.
Recognizing how common such speech is, we focus on slowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation, and directing users to authoritative information. As part of that effort, we partner with third-party fact checking organizations to review and rate the accuracy of the most viral content on our platforms (see here to learn more about how our fact-checking program works). We also provide resources to increase media and digital literacy so people can decide what to read, trust, and share themselves. We require people to disclose, using our AI-disclosure tool, whenever they post organic content with photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so. We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance.
Finally, we prohibit content and behavior in other areas that often overlap with the spread of misinformation. For example, our Community Standards prohibit fake accounts, fraud, and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
As online and offline environments change and evolve, we will continue to evolve these policies. Accounts that repeatedly share the misinformation listed below may, in addition to having their content enforced on in accordance with this policy, receive decreased distribution, limitations on their ability to advertise, or be removed from our platforms. Additional information on what happens when Meta removes content can be found here.
Misinformation we remove:
We remove the following types of misinformation:
I. Physical Harm or Violence
We remove misinformation or unverifiable rumors that expert partners have determined are likely to directly contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm to people. We define misinformation as content with a claim that is determined to be false by an authoritative third party. We define an unverifiable rumor as a claim whose source expert partners confirm is extremely hard or impossible to trace, for which authoritative sources are absent, where there is not enough specificity for the claim to be debunked, or where the claim is too incredulous or too irrational to be believed.
We know that sometimes misinformation that might appear benign could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline harm, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, or other physical harm. We work with a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian organizations, and international organizations that have expertise in these local dynamics.
In countries experiencing a heightened risk of societal violence, we work proactively with local partners to understand which false claims may directly contribute to a risk of imminent physical harm. We then work to identify and remove content making those claims on our platform. For example, in consultation with local experts, we may remove out-of-context media falsely claiming to depict acts of violence, victims or perpetrators of violence, weapons, or military hardware.
II. Harmful Health Misinformation
We consult with leading health organizations to identify health misinformation likely to directly contribute to imminent harm to public health and safety. The harmful health misinformation that we remove includes the following:
  • Misinformation about vaccines. We remove misinformation primarily about vaccines when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to imminent vaccine refusals. They include:
    • Vaccines cause autism (Ex: “Increased vaccinations are why so many kids have autism these days.”)
    • Vaccines cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Ex: “Don’t you know vaccines cause SIDS?”
    • Vaccines cause the disease against which they are meant to protect, or cause the person receiving the vaccine to be more likely to get the disease (Ex: “Taking a vaccine actually makes you more likely to get the disease since there’s a strain of the disease inside. Beware!”)
    • Vaccines or their ingredients are deadly, toxic, poisonous, harmful, or dangerous (Ex: “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don’t mind putting poison in your body.”)
    • Natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity (Ex: “It’s safest to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.”)
    • It is dangerous to get several vaccines in a short period of time, even if that timing is medically recommended (Ex: “Never take more than one vaccine at the same time, that is dangerous - I don’t care what your doctor tells you!”)
    • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease against which they purport to protect. However, for the COVID-19, flu, and malaria vaccines, we do not remove claims that those vaccines are not effective in preventing someone from contracting those viruses. (Ex’s: Remove – “The polio vaccine doesn’t do anything to stop you from getting the disease”; Remove – “Vaccines actually don’t do anything to stop you from getting diseases”; Allow – “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19, that’s why you still need to socially distance and wear a mask when you’re around others.”)
    • Acquiring measles cannot cause death (requires additional information and/or context) (Ex: “Don’t worry about whether you get measles, it can’t be fatal.”)
    • Vitamin C is as effective as vaccines in preventing diseases for which vaccines exist.
  • Misinformation about health during public health emergencies. We remove misinformation during public health emergencies when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. We identify public health emergencies in partnership with global and local health authorities. This currently includes certain false claims related to COVID-19 in countries still experiencing a publicly announced state of emergency regarding the virus. Click here for a complete set of rules regarding what misinformation we do not allow regarding COVID-19 and vaccines.
  • Promoting or advocating for harmful miracle cures for health issues. These include treatments where the recommended application, in a health context, is likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, and the treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).
III. Voter or Census Interference
In an effort to promote election and census integrity, we remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes. This includes the following:
  • Misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation.
  • Misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.
  • Misinformation about whether a candidate is running or not.
  • Misinformation about who can participate in the census and what information or materials must be provided in order to participate.
  • Misinformation about government involvement in the census, including, where applicable, that an individual's census information will be shared with another (non-census) government agency.
  • Content falsely claiming that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is at a voting location.
  • Explicit false claims that people will be infected by COVID-19 (or another communicable disease) if they participate in the voting process.
We have additional policies intended to cover calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, and calls for coordinated interference in elections, which are represented in other sections of our Community Standards.
IV. Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead, particularly in the case of video content. We remove this content because it can go viral quickly and experts advise that false beliefs regarding manipulated media often cannot be corrected through further discourse.
We remove videos under this policy if specific criteria are met: (1) the video has been edited or synthesized, beyond adjustments for clarity or quality, in ways that are not apparent to an average person, and would likely mislead an average person to believe a subject of the video said words that they did not say; and (2) the video is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning, including deep learning techniques (e.g., a technical deepfake), that merges, combines, replaces, and/or superimposes content onto a video, creating a video that appears authentic.
To provide transparency that in countries experiencing a heightened risk of societal violence, we identify and remove content making harmful misinformation claims.
Policy Rationale
Misinformation is different from other types of speech addressed in our Community Standards because there is no way to articulate a comprehensive list of what is prohibited. With graphic violence or hate speech, for instance, our policies specify the speech we prohibit, and even persons who disagree with those policies can follow them. With misinformation, however, we cannot provide such a line. The world is changing constantly, and what is true one minute may not be true the next minute. People also have different levels of information about the world around them, and may believe something is true when it is not. A policy that simply prohibits “misinformation” would not provide useful notice to the people who use our services and would be unenforceable, as we don’t have perfect access to information.
Instead, our policies articulate different categories of misinformation and try to provide clear guidance about how we treat that speech when we see it. For each category, our approach reflects our attempt to balance our values of expression, safety, dignity, authenticity, and privacy.
We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes. In determining what constitutes misinformation in these categories, we partner with independent experts who possess knowledge and expertise to assess the truth of the content and whether it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent harm. This includes, for instance, partnering with human rights organizations with a presence on the ground in a country to determine the truth of a rumor about civil conflict.
For all other misinformation, we focus on reducing its prevalence or creating an environment that fosters a productive dialogue. We know that people often use misinformation in harmless ways, such as to exaggerate a point (“This team has the worst record in the history of the sport!”) or in humor or satire (“My husband just won Husband of the Year.”) They also may share their experience through stories that contain inaccuracies. In some cases, people share deeply-held personal opinions that others consider false or share information that they believe to be true but others consider incomplete or misleading.
Recognizing how common such speech is, we focus on slowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation, and directing users to authoritative information. As part of that effort, we partner with third-party fact checking organizations to review and rate the accuracy of the most viral content on our platforms (see here to learn more about how our fact-checking program works). We also provide resources to increase media and digital literacy so people can decide what to read, trust, and share themselves. We require people to disclose, using our AI-disclosure tool, whenever they post organic content with photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so. We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance.
Finally, we prohibit content and behavior in other areas that often overlap with the spread of misinformation. For example, our Community Standards prohibit fake accounts, fraud, and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
As online and offline environments change and evolve, we will continue to evolve these policies. Accounts that repeatedly share the misinformation listed below may, in addition to having their content enforced on in accordance with this policy, receive decreased distribution, limitations on their ability to advertise, or be removed from our platforms. Additional information on what happens when Meta removes content can be found here.
Misinformation we remove:
We remove the following types of misinformation:
I. Physical Harm or Violence
We remove misinformation or unverifiable rumors that expert partners have determined are likely to directly contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm to people. We define misinformation as content with a claim that is determined to be false by an authoritative third party. We define an unverifiable rumor as a claim whose source expert partners confirm is extremely hard or impossible to trace, for which authoritative sources are absent, where there is not enough specificity for the claim to be debunked, or where the claim is too incredulous or too irrational to be believed.
We know that sometimes misinformation that might appear benign could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline harm, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, or other physical harm. We work with a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian organizations, and international organizations that have expertise in these local dynamics.
II. Harmful Health Misinformation
We consult with leading health organizations to identify health misinformation likely to directly contribute to imminent harm to public health and safety. The harmful health misinformation that we remove includes the following:
  • Misinformation about vaccines. We remove misinformation primarily about vaccines when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to imminent vaccine refusals. They include:
    • Vaccines cause autism (Ex: “Increased vaccinations are why so many kids have autism these days.”)
    • Vaccines cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Ex: “Don’t you know vaccines cause SIDS?”
    • Vaccines cause the disease against which they are meant to protect, or cause the person receiving the vaccine to be more likely to get the disease (Ex: “Taking a vaccine actually makes you more likely to get the disease since there’s a strain of the disease inside. Beware!”)
    • Vaccines or their ingredients are deadly, toxic, poisonous, harmful, or dangerous (Ex: “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don’t mind putting poison in your body.”)
    • Natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity (Ex: “It’s safest to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.”)
    • It is dangerous to get several vaccines in a short period of time, even if that timing is medically recommended (Ex: “Never take more than one vaccine at the same time, that is dangerous - I don’t care what your doctor tells you!”)
    • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease against which they purport to protect. However, for the COVID-19, flu, and malaria vaccines, we do not remove claims that those vaccines are not effective in preventing someone from contracting those viruses. (Ex’s: Remove – “The polio vaccine doesn’t do anything to stop you from getting the disease”; Remove – “Vaccines actually don’t do anything to stop you from getting diseases”; Allow – “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19, that’s why you still need to socially distance and wear a mask when you’re around others.”)
    • Acquiring measles cannot cause death (requires additional information and/or context) (Ex: “Don’t worry about whether you get measles, it can’t be fatal.”)
    • Vitamin C is as effective as vaccines in preventing diseases for which vaccines exist.
  • Misinformation about health during public health emergencies. We remove misinformation during public health emergencies when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. We identify public health emergencies in partnership with global and local health authorities. This currently includes certain false claims related to COVID-19 in countries still experiencing a publicly announced state of emergency regarding the virus.This currently includes false claims related to COVID-19 that are verified by expert health authorities, about the existence or severity of the virus, how to cure or prevent it, how the virus is transmitted or who is immune, and false claims which discourage good health practices related to COVID-19 (such as getting tested, social distancing, wearing a face mask, and getting a vaccine for COVID-19).Click here for a complete set of rules regarding what misinformation we do not allow regarding COVID-19 and vaccines.
  • Promoting or advocating for harmful miracle cures for health issues. These include treatments where the recommended application, in a health context, is likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, and the treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).
III. Voter or Census Interference
In an effort to promote election and census integrity, we remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes. This includes the following:
  • Misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation.
  • Misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.
  • Misinformation about whether a candidate is running or not.
  • Misinformation about who can participate in the census and what information or materials must be provided in order to participate.
  • Misinformation about government involvement in the census, including, where applicable, that an individual's census information will be shared with another (non-census) government agency.
  • Content falsely claiming that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is at a voting location.
  • Explicit false claims that people will be infected by COVID-19 (or another communicable disease) if they participate in the voting process.
We have additional policies intended to cover calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, and calls for coordinated interference in elections, which are represented in other sections of our Community Standards.
IV. Manipulated Media
Media can be edited in a variety of ways. In many cases, these changes are benign, such as content being cropped or shortened for artistic reasons or music being added. In other cases, the manipulation is not apparent and could mislead, particularly in the case of video content. We remove this content because it can go viral quickly and experts advise that false beliefs regarding manipulated media often cannot be corrected through further discourse.
We remove videos under this policy if specific criteria are met: (1) the video has been edited or synthesized, beyond adjustments for clarity or quality, in ways that are not apparent to an average person, and would likely mislead an average person to believe a subject of the video said words that they did not say; and (2) the video is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning, including deep learning techniques (e.g., a technical deepfake), that merges, combines, replaces, and/or superimposes content onto a video, creating a video that appears authentic.
የተጠቃሚ ተሞክሮዎች
Facebook ላይ ላሉ ሰዎች ደንብ ማስከበር ምን እንደሚመስል አንዳንድ ምሳሌዎችን ይመልከቱ፣ ለምሳሌ፦ Facebook ላይ መሆን የለበትም ብለው የሚያምኑትን የሆነ ነገር ሪፖርት ማድረግ፣ የማህበረሰብ ደንቦችን ጥሰዋል ተብሎ ሲነገርዎ እና የሆነ ይዘት ላይ የማስጠንቀቂያ ማያ ገጽ ማየት ምን እንደሚመስል።
ማስታወሻ፦ እኛ ሁልጊዜም በመሻሻል ላይ ነን፣ ስለዚህ እዚህ የሚያዩት ነገር አሁን ከምንጠቀምበት ነገር አንጻር ትንሽ ጊዜው ያለፈበት ሊሆን ይችላል።
የተጠቃሚ ተሞክሮ
ሪፖርት ማድረግ
የተጠቃሚ ተሞክሮ
የድህረ-ሪፖርት መረጃ ልውውጥ
የተጠቃሚ ተሞክሮ
የማስወገድ ተሞክሮ
የተጠቃሚ ተሞክሮ
የማስጠንቀቂያ ማያ ገጾች
ማስፈጸም
በዓለም ዙሪያ በFacebook ላይ ለሚገኝ ለእያንዳንዱ ሰው ተመሳሳይ ፖሊሲዎች አሉን።
የግምገማ ቡድኖች
በመላ ዓለም የሚገኙ ከ15,000 በላይ ገምጋሚዎችን ያቀፈ ቡድናችን Facebook ላይ የሚገኙ ሰዎችን ደህንነት ለማረጋገጥ በየቀኑ ስራዎችን ይሰራል።
የባለድርሻ ተሳትፎ
ውጫዊ ባለሙያዎች፣ ምሁራን፣ መንግስታዊ ያልሆኑ ድርጅቶች እና ፖሊሲ አውጪዎች የFacebook የማህበረሰብ ደንቦችን ለማሳወቅ ይረዳሉ።
የተሳሳተ መረጃን በተመለከተ እገዛ ያግኙ
የማህበረሰብ ደንቦቻችንን የሚጻረር ነገር በFacebook ላይ ካዩ ምን ማድረግ እንደሚችሉ ይወቁ።
የእገዛ ማዕከላችንን ይጎብኙ