Suicide, self-injury and eating disorders

Policy Details

User experiences

Data

Policy details

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Policy rationale

We care deeply about the safety of the people who use our apps. We regularly consult with experts in suicide, self-injury and eating disorders to help inform our policies and enforcement, and we work with organisations around the world to provide assistance to people in distress.

While we do not allow people to intentionally or unintentionally celebrate or promote suicide, self-injury or eating disorders, we do allow people to discuss these topics because we want our services to be a space where people can share their experiences, raise awareness about these issues and seek support from one another. We may also limit the ability to view this content to adults aged 18 and older.

We remove any content that encourages suicide, self-injury or eating disorders, including fictional content such as memes or illustrations and any self-injury content which is graphic, regardless of context. We remove content that contains instructions for extreme weight loss behaviour. We also remove content that mocks victims or survivors of suicide, self-injury or eating disorders, as well as real-time depictions of suicide or self-injury. Content about recovery from suicide, self-injury or eating disorders that is allowed, but may contain imagery that could be upsetting (such as a healed scar) is placed behind a sensitivity screen and we will also limit the ability to view the content to adults aged 18 and older.

When people post or search for suicide-, self-injury- or eating disorder-related content, we will direct them to local organisations that can provide support, and if our Community Operations team is concerned about immediate harm, we will contact local emergency services to get them help. For more information, visit the Meta Safety Centre.

With respect to live content, experts have told us that if someone is saying that they intend to attempt suicide on a live-stream, we should leave the content up for as long as possible because the longer that someone is talking to a camera, the more opportunity there is for a friend or family member to call emergency services. However, to minimise the risk of others being negatively affected by viewing this content, we will stop the live-stream at the point at which the threat turns into an attempt. As mentioned above, in any case, we will contact the emergency services if we identify that someone is at immediate risk of harming themselves.

We do not allow:

Content that promotes, encourages, coordinates or provides instructions for suicide, self-injury or eating disorders.

Content that depicts graphic suicide, self-injury or eating disorder imagery

Content depicting a person who engaged in a suicide attempt or death by suicide

Imagery of people when shared together with terms associated with eating disorders

Content that focuses on depiction of ribs, collar bones, thigh gaps, hips, concave stomach, protruding spine, scapula, visible bones in arms or legs or hollow cheeks when shared together with terms associated with eating disorders

Content that contains instructions for extreme weight loss behaviour

Content admitting to extreme weight loss behaviour when shared together with terms associated with eating disorders

Content that contains instructions for restrictive dieting when shared together with terms associated with eating disorders

Content that mocks victims or survivors of suicide, self-injury or eating disorders who are either publicly known or implied to be experiencing or have experienced suicide, self-injury or eating disorders

Imagery depicting body modification (e.g. tattoo, piercing, scarification, self-flagellation) when shared in a suicide or self-injury context

For the following content, we include a warning screen so that people are aware that the content may be sensitive. We also limit the ability to view the content to adults aged 18 and older:

Photos or videos depicting a person who engaged in euthanasia/assisted suicide in a medical setting.

Content that depicts older instances of self-injury such as healed cuts or other non-graphic self-injury imagery in a self-injury, suicide or recovery context

Content that depicts ribs, collar bones, thigh gaps, hips, concave stomach, protruding spine, scapula, visible bones in arms or legs or hollow cheeks in a recovery context

For the following content, we provide resources to people and limit the ability to view the content to adults aged 18 and older:

Written or verbal admission of suicide, self-injury or eating disorders.

Vague, potentially suicidal statements or references (including memes or stock imagery about sad mood depression, presenting death as an escape or content from popular culture with emphasis on dark, depressive thoughts) in a suicide or self-injury context.

For the following content, we limit the ability to view the content to adults aged 18 and older:

Mocking or dismissing the concept of suicide, self-injury or eating disorders

Narratives that contain a description of suicide with details that go beyond the mere naming or mentioning of the act or the aftermath

Admitting to extreme weight loss behaviour

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

We may remove suicide notes when we have confirmation of a suicide or suicide attempt. We try to identify suicide notes using several factors, including, but not limited to:

Family or legal representative requests,

Reports from media, law enforcement or other third-party sources (e.g. government agencies, NGOs) or the Suicidal content contact form or Instagram contact form.

We may take into account off-platform signals of admission to or promotion of suicide, self-injury, eating disorders or extreme weight-loss behaviours from a user to assess whether specific content posted by them on Meta platforms could present a risk to others.