Homophobic Violence in West Africa

UPDATED

JUL 16, 2024

2024-041-FB-UA

Today, July 16, 2024, the Oversight Board selected a case appealed by a Facebook user regarding a video from Nigeria that shows two men who appear to have been beaten and detained for allegedly having sex with one another. In the video, the community is interrogating the men, one of whom identifies himself by name and says he was beaten because he was having sex with a man. The user added a caption stating, “They were caught practicing gay the funniest part is they are both married.” In Nigeria, engaging in same-sex relationships is a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment and LGBT+ Nigerians face widespread official and societal discrimination, such as being subject to assault by police officers during arrests, extortion attempts, and discrimination when accessing public and private services. .

Upon initial review, Meta left this content up. However, upon further review, we determined the content did in fact violate our policy on Coordinating Harm and Promoting Crime as laid out in the Facebook Community Standards, and was left up in error. We therefore removed the content. .

Under our Coordinating Harm and Promoting Crime policy, Meta prohibits content “outing” individuals by exposing the identity or locations affiliated with anyone who is alleged to be a member of an outing-risk group in order to prevent and disrupt offline harm. More specifically, we prohibit outing that is involuntary, meaning we allow people to declare themselves to be a member of an outing-risk group in the interest of protecting voice. In this case, however, we determined that this admission was involuntary given the fact that both men are injured and speaking while being detained.

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.