Locally Illegal Content, Products, or Services

Policy details

CHANGE LOG

Today

Oct 2, 2024

Policy Rationale

When regulators or government entities believe content on our services goes against local law, they may ask us to restrict the content. Non-government entities and members of the public may also send reports alleging content is unlawful. We may also receive court orders.

When we receive a report or an order, we first review it against the Community Standards. If we determine that the content goes against our policies, we remove it. If content does not go against our policies, in line with our commitments as a member of the Global Network Initiative and our Corporate Human Rights Policy, we conduct a careful legal review as well as human rights due diligence to determine whether the report is valid.

In cases where we believe that reports are not legally valid, are overly broad, or are inconsistent with international human rights standards, we may request clarification or take no action.

Where we do act against user content on the basis of local law rather than our Community Standards, we endeavor to restrict access to the content only in the jurisdiction where it is alleged to be unlawful and do not impose any other penalties or feature restrictions. We also notify the affected user.

We also publish reports detailing how we assess reports of content violating local law and instances where we restricted access to content in such cases, available here.

User experiences

See some examples of what enforcement looks like for people on Facebook, such as: what it looks like to report something you don’t think should be on Facebook, to be told 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Note: We’re always improving, so what you see here may be slightly outdated compared to what we currently use.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 locally illegal content, products, or services

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

Visit our Help Center