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Videos of Teachers Hitting Children Bundle
DIPERBARUI 29 SEP 2025
Standard Case 2025-020-FB-MR, 2025-021-FB-MR
Today, May 7, 2025, the Oversight Board selected a case bundle referred by Meta regarding two videos posted to Facebook that show teachers hitting children in school settings.
The first piece of content concerns a video posted by a media organization in India. The video shows a teacher yelling at a young school student for not studying, repeatedly hitting his head, and appearing to pull at his turban. The child's face is partially blurred, though he periodically moves his face out of the blurring range, and the teacher and other students are all visible. The caption notes that a state official has called for accountability.
The second piece of content concerns a video posted by a page in France that appears to share local news. The video shows a group of very young children in an educational setting, with a teacher hitting a crying child who then falls to the ground while other children watch. All faces are blurred in this video. The caption references the specific neighborhood where the incident was apparently filmed and mentions an investigation.
Meta determined that both pieces of content violated our Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Nudity policy, as laid out in the Meta Community Standards, and removed them from our platform. However, upon further review of the second case, Meta decided that the newsworthiness allowance applies and restored the content with a warning label.. Media reported that the child's parents' attorney had shared the video, therefore, Meta determined that the public interest value outweighed the harm, as the parents' consent mitigated the privacy and dignity concerns.
Meta referred these cases to the Board because we found them significant and difficult as they create tension between our values of safety, voice, and dignity.
Under our Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Nudity policy, Meta removes "videos or photos that depict real or non-real non-sexual child abuse regardless of sharing intent," with no exceptions and regardless of the intent, to prioritize the safety, dignity, and privacy of the minor.
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, July 31, 2025, on this case bundle. The Board upheld Meta's decision to leave up the content with warning labels in the French case and overturned Meta's decision to remove the content in the Indian case.
Meta will comply with the Board's decisions and reinstate the content with warning labels in the Indian case within 7 days.
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 this case. For more information, please see our Newsroom post about how we implement the Board's decisions.
After conducting a review of the recommendations provided by the Board, we will update this post with initial responses to those recommendations.Recommendations
Recommendation #1 (Assessing Feasibility)
To allow users to condemn, report and raise awareness of non-sexual child abuse, Meta should include an exception in its public-facing Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Nudity Community Standard allowing images and videos of non-sexual child abuse perpetrated by adults, when shared with this intent. Content should be allowed with a "mark as disturbing" warning screen and restricted visibility to users aged 18 and older. In these cases, children must neither be directly identifiable (by name or image), nor functionally identifiable (when contextual clues are likely to lead to the identification of the individual). This exception should be applied on escalation only.
The Board will consider this recommendation implemented when Meta updates the public-facing Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Nudity Community Standard in accordance with the above.
Commitment Statement: We are considering updating our policies to allow condemnation, reporting, or awareness raising images and videos of non-sexual child abuse perpetuated by adults when children in the content are not directly or functionally identifiable. This would require certain protections, like “Mark As Sensitive” warning screens and age-restrictions. Consistent with this recommendation, we are considering allowing this content on escalation as part of our context-specific policies.
Considerations: As the Board notes in its decision, users may share content including videos or imagery of non-sexual child abuse perpetuated by adults to contribute to public debate on important children’s rights issues. The existing policy lines around removal of content depicting non-sexual child abuse considers tradeoffs of our policy values such as safety and dignity with voice. With that said, we recognize that there may be ways to update our approach to allow for more voice in contexts where children are neither functionally nor directly identifiable in the content while still maintaining other protections such as a Mark As Sensitive screen and restricting the content only to viewers over 18. We are working with our internal policy and enforcement teams to assess next steps for introducing a context-specific policy that allows this content in limited circumstances. We will provide updates on the status of this work in a future report to the Board.
Recommendation #2 (Implementing in Full)
To ensure proportionate and consistent enforcement, Meta should not apply strikes to accounts whose non-sexual child abuse content it removes on escalation where there are clear indicators of the user’s intent to condemn, report or raise awareness.
The Board will consider this recommendation implemented when Meta shares its Internal Implementation Standards that incorporate this guidance for content reviewed on escalation.
Commitment Statement: Meta currently considers witholding a strike on content depicting non-sexual child abuse when it is shared in a reporting, awareness raising, or condemning context. However, we will update the existing guidance with an additional example to make this clearer.
Considerations: Escalation teams already consider whether withholding a strike is appropriate and proportional based on contextual factors by using our existing strike exemption guidance. This includes guidance to consider withholding a strike when people share non-sexual child abuse content in a condemning, reporting, or awareness raising context. However, clarifying this guidance with an example, in combination with the policy assessment we will conduct in response to recommendation 1, will support consistent non-application of strikes on this content. Given our guidance addresses this recommendation, we consider this recommendation complete.