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Posts with Puppies Seemingly for Sale Bundle
ÚLTIMA ACTUALIZACIÓN 13 FEB. 2026
Today, August 13, 2025, the Oversight Board selected a case bundle appealed by Facebook users regarding two pieces of content related to the advertising of pets.
The first piece of content concerns a short video posted to a Facebook page by an administrator of the page depicting two puppies in a pen. The caption states the breed of the puppies and the text overlay on the video repeats the same words along with an Instagram handle. The public page where the content was posted states that the user is a specialist dog breeder.
The second piece of content concerns a post to a user’s own profile timeline on Facebook. The post contains six videos of puppies for sale, states that the user is “looking for furparents,” and that they have six pure-breed puppies “open for reservation.” Additional details are included about the puppies, though there is no mention of price or money changing hands. The user describes themselves as a “digital creator” on their profile.
Upon initial review, Meta took down both pieces of content for violating our policy on Restricted Goods and Services, as laid out in the Community Standards. However, upon additional review, we determined we removed the first piece of content in error and reinstated the post. Meta removes content “that attempts to buy, sell or trade live non-endangered animals” unless it falls into a number of stated exceptions. One of those exceptions allows content “posted by a Page, group or Instagram profile representing legitimate brick-and-mortar entities… or a private individual sharing content on behalf of legitimate brick-and-mortar entities.”
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.
Read the board’s case selection summary
Case decision
We welcome the Oversight Board's decision today, December 2, 2025, on this case. The Board overturned Meta’s original decision to remove the content in the first case and upheld the decision to remove it in the second case. Meta previously reinstated the content in the first case, so no additional action will be taken.
When it is technically and operationally possible to do so, we will also take action on content that is identical and in the same context as the first case. For more information, please see our Newsroom post about how we implement the Board’s decisions.
After conducting a review of the recommendation provided by the Board, we will update this post with initial responses to that recommendation.
Recommendations
Recommendation 1 (implementing in part)
To provide more clarity to users on what is not allowed under its Restricted Goods and Services policy, Meta should clarify that peer-to-peer trade in non-endangered animals for profit is prohibited and remove references to “brick-and-mortar entities” from this part of the policy. The policy should instead state that Meta applies a multi-factor test to determine what constitutes an established business permitted to sell non-endangered animals on the platform, and list several of the relevant factors.
The Board will consider this recommendation implemented when the policy is updated as described above in Meta’s Community Standards.
Our commitment:
We will clarify our approach to removing attempts to sell non-endangered animals on the platform by implementing a small update to our Restricted Goods and Services Community Standard, though we do not expect to make major changes to our “brick-and-mortar” definition.
Considerations:
Our Restricted Goods and Services (RGS) Community Standard rationale explains that we prohibit attempts to sell, raffle, gift, transfer, or trade certain goods and services on our platform in order to deter potentially harmful activities and encourage safety. For non-endangered animals, we specifically note that we do not allow content that attempts to buy, sell, or trade live, non-endangered animals unless this content is shared in a range of contexts. For example, we note that we allow content buying, selling, or trading when the non-endangered animal is posted by a Page, group, or Instagram profile that represents a legitimate brick-and-mortar entity, which may include retail businesses, legitimate websites, rehoming shelters or brands, or a private individuals who is sharing the content on behalf of a legitimate brick-and-mortar entity. Our Community Standards also detail a range of other examples where this selling, buying, or trading may be allowed—providing a reader-friendly overview of the kinds of factors considered when determining what constitutes established entities permitted to sell non-endangered animals on the platform.
We want to ensure that we are transparently communicating our policies in detail, while also ensuring their clarity and readability. We will make updates to our Community Standards to clarify our approach to peer-to-peer sales of non-endangered animals, and are still considering how we can incorporate this recommendation. However, given the consistent use of “brick-and-mortar” throughout our RGS policy, including prior policy development around related policies, we expect to continue to use this language across the Community Standards to maintain consistency for our users.
We will share updates on the status of this work in future bi-annual reports.