Iranian Make-Up Video for a Child Marriage

UPDATED

OCT 10, 2024

2024-037-IG-MR

Today, June 4, 2024, the Oversight Board selected a case referred by Meta regarding a video posted to Instagram. The post is meant to advertise the services of a beauty salon and the video depicts a conversation between a beautician and a bride who states that she is 14 years old. The video includes a caption in Farsi which, when translated, claims that the story is “based on a real event” and is followed by advertising “consulting and tutorial services for brides.”

Meta took down this content for violating our Human Exploitation policy, as laid out in the Instagram Community Guidelines and Facebook Community Standards.

Meta referred this case to the board because we found it significant and difficult as it creates tension between our values of safety and voice.

While our policy does not explicitly prohibit support or praise for child marriage, it does explicitly prohibit content that “recruits people for, facilitates, or exploits people” through child marriage. The policy rationale notes that the goal of the Human Exploitation policy is to remove all forms of “exploitation of humans,” and we believe that this encompasses support for child marriage, particularly when the post may create a financial benefit for the user (in this case, the user is actively recruiting minors for paid services related to a wedding).

We will implement the board’s decision once it has finished deliberating, and will update this post accordingly. Please see the Board's website for the decision when they issue it.

Case decision

We welcome the Oversight Board’s decision today, October 10, 2024, on this case. The Board upheld Meta’s decision to remove the content from Instagram.

After conducting a review of the recommendations provided by the Board, we will update this post with initial responses to those recommendations.