Inauthentic behaviour

Policy Details

User Experiences

Policy details

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Policy Rationale

In line with our commitment to authenticity, we don't allow people to misrepresent themselves on our services, use fake accounts, artificially boost the popularity of content, or engage in behaviours designed to enable other violations under our Community Standards. Inauthentic Behaviour refers to a variety of complex forms of deception, performed by a network of inauthentic assets controlled by the same individual or individuals, with the goal of deceiving Meta or our community or to evade enforcement under the Community Standards.

Where adversarial threat actors use fake accounts to engage in sophisticated Inauthentic tactics in order to influence public debate – they engage in what we've defined as coordinated inauthentic behaviour – or coordinated efforts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal, in which fake accounts are central to the operation. This violating behaviour receives a more severe and often bespoke response, in keeping with their more substantial and sophisticated efforts to deceive. Whenever possible, we share our findings about networks of Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour in our Quarterly Adversarial Threat Reports, found here. These reports are not meant to cover the entire universe of enforcements under the inauthentic behaviour policy, but help inform our community's understanding of the evolving nature of threats that we face in this space.

While inauthentic behaviour is often associated with civic or political content, and we are committed to preventing inauthentic behaviour in the context of elections – these enforcement actions and standards apply agnostic of content, political or otherwise. This policy is intended to protect the authenticity of debate and discussion on our services, and create a space where people can trust the people and communities they interact with.

We do not allow:

The creation, use or claimed use of Inauthentic Meta Assets (Accounts, Pages, Groups etc.) in order to:

Deceive Meta or our users about:

The identity, purpose or origin of an audience or the entity that they represent; or

the popularity of content or assets on our services; or

a Meta asset's ownership or control network.

To evade enforcement under the Community Standards.

Misuse Meta reporting systems to harass, intimidate or silence others.

Engaging in complex deception through the use of Meta assets, including:

Inauthentic Distribution: Using a connected network of inauthentic Meta assets to increase the distribution of content, in order to mislead Meta or its users about the popularity of the content in question.

Inauthentic Audience Building: Using inauthentic Meta assets to increase the viewership or following of network assets, in order to mislead Meta or its users about the origin, ownership or purpose of an asset or assets.

Foreign Inauthentic Behaviour: Foreign entities using inauthentic Meta assets to falsely represent a domestic or local voice, in order to deceive an audience about the identity, purpose or origin of the entity they represent.

Inauthentic Engagement: Using a connected network of inauthentic Meta assets to deliver substantial quantities of fake engagement in ways designed to look authentic, in order to deceive Meta and its users about the popularity of content.

Substantially Similar Deceptions: Other substantially similar claimed or actual efforts by relatively sophisticated, connected networks of inauthentic Meta assets to deceive Meta or its users about the origin, popularity or purpose of content.

For the following Community Standards, we require additional information and/or context to enforce:

We do not allow:

Entities to engage in, or claim to engage in Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour, defined as particularly sophisticated forms of inauthentic behaviour where inauthentic accounts are central to the operation and operators:

Use adversarial methods to evade detection or appear authentic; and

Use a variety of adversarial and inauthentic techniques to achieve overarching strategic objectives; and

Primarily seek to manipulate public debate.

Entities to engage in, or claim to engage in Foreign Interference, defined as coordinated inauthentic behaviour where the network operators are not located in the same country as the audience the operation targets.

Entities to engage in, or claim to engage in Government Interference, defined as coordinated inauthentic behaviour where the operation is attributable to a government actor

Governments that have instituted sustained blocks of social media to use their official departments, agencies and embassies to deny the use of force or violent events in the context of an attack against the territorial integrity of another state in violation of Article 2(4) of the UN charter.

User experiences

See some examples of what enforcement looks like for people on Facebook, such as: what it looks like to report something that you don't think should be on Facebook, to be told that you've violated our Community Standards and to see a warning screen over certain content.

Note: We're always improving, so what you see here may be slightly outdated compared to what we currently use.

USER EXPERIENCE

Reporting

USER EXPERIENCE

Post-report communication

USER EXPERIENCE

Takedown experience

USER EXPERIENCE

Warning screens

Enforcement

We have the same policies around the world, for everyone on Facebook.

Review teams

Our global team of over 15,000 reviewers work every day to keep people on Facebook safe.

Stakeholder engagement

Outside experts, academics, NGOs and policymakers help inform the Facebook Community Standards.

Get help with inauthentic behaviour

Learn what you can do if you see something on Facebook that goes against our Community Standards.

Visit our Help Centre