Facebook Community Standards
Policies that outline what is and isn't allowed on the Facebook app.
Instagram Community Guidelines
Policies that outline what is and isn't allowed on the Instagram app.
Meta Advertising Standards
Policies for ad content and business assets.
Other policies
Other policies that apply to Meta technologies.
How Meta improves
How we update our policies, measure results, work with others, and more.
Our approach to the opioid epidemic
How we support communities in the face of the opioid epidemic.
Our approach to elections
How we help prevent interference, empower people to vote and more.
Our approach to misinformation
How we work with independent fact-checkers, and more, to identify and take action on misinformation.
Our approach to newsworthy content
How we assess content for newsworthiness.
Our approach to Facebook Feed ranking
How we reduce problematic content in News Feed.
Our approach to explaining ranking
How we build AI systems.
Content Library and Content Library API
Comprehensive access to public data from Facebook and Instagram
Ad Library tools
Comprehensive and searchable database of all ads currently running across Meta technologies
Other research tools and datasets
Additional tools for in-depth research on Meta technologies and programs
Community Standards Enforcement Report
Quarterly report on how well we're doing at enforcing our policies on the Facebook app and Instagram.
Intellectual Property
Report on how well we're helping people protect their intellectual property.
Government Requests for User Data
Report on government request for people's data.
Content Restrictions Based on Local Law
Report on when we restrict content that's reported to us as violating local law.
Internet Disruptions
Report on intentional internet restrictions that limit people's ability to access the internet.
Widely Viewed Content Report
Quarterly report on what people see on Facebook, including the content that receives the widest distribution during the quarter.
Regulatory and Other Transparency Reports
Download current and past regulatory reports for Facebook and Instagram.
For policy violations on Facebook and Instagram, we measure the number of pieces of content (such as posts, photos, videos or comments) that people appeal after we take action on it for going against our policies.
Where a decision is eligible for appeal, people are given the option to ask us to take another look after receiving a notification that their content has been removed or covered with a warning. When someone appeals a decision, Meta reviews the post again and determines whether or not it follows our Community Standards. This process allows people to let us know if they think we’ve made a mistake, which is essential to help us build a fair system.
This metric shouldn't be interpreted as an indicator of the accuracy of our decisions on content, as people may choose to appeal for many different reasons.
We report the total number of pieces of content that had an appeal submitted in each quarter — for example, January 1 through March 31. Keep in mind that this means that the numbers can't be compared directly to content actioned or to content restored for the same quarter. Some restored content may have been appealed in the previous quarter, and some appealed content may be restored in the next quarter.
This number can go up or down due to external factors or due to internal processes. For example, imagine an offline event or a spam attack that leads to more violating posts on Facebook. As a result, we action more posts than usual. Because we have actioned more content, we may see a relatively large number of appeals. This spike in appeals doesn't mean that Meta made more incorrect decisions: it just means that more people chose to appeal our decisions.
A piece of content can be any number of things including a post, photo, video or comment. How we count individual pieces of content can be complex and has evolved over time. Learn more about our content actioned metric.
How the Meta appeals process works
Let’s say someone publishes a post which we decide to remove from Facebook for going against our policies. The person who posted it is notified, and given the option to accept the decision or disagree and request another review.
If they choose to disagree with the decision, the content is resubmitted for another review. The content is not visible to other people on Facebook while we review it again.
If the reviewer accepts the original decision, the content remains off Facebook. However, if the reviewer disagrees with the initial review and decides it should not have been removed, the content will go to another reviewer. This reviewer's decision will determine whether the content should be on Facebook or not.
What can be appealed
Today, we offer appeals for the vast majority of violation types on Facebook and Instagram. We don't offer appeals for violations with extreme safety concerns, such as child exploitation imagery. We use a combination of human review and technology to process appeal requests. During busy periods, we may not always be able to review everything based on our review capacity.
We also provide appeals not just for content that we took action on, but also for content that was reported but not acted on. These reporter appeals are not included in the Community Standards Enforcement Report.
How we measure appeals on accounts, Pages, Groups and Events
The Community Standards Enforcement Report report does not currently include any appeals metrics for accounts, pages, groups and events we took action on.
