Prevalence remained consistent across a range of violation types. We are also expanding the scope of the report to include Spam metrics on Instagram for the first time. The report now covers 14 policy areas on Facebook and 13 on Instagram.
Adversarial Threat Report
In our Q3 Adversarial Threat report, we’re sharing threat research into five new covert influence operations that we took down in Moldova, India, Iran and Lebanon. We detected and removed these campaigns before they were able to build authentic audiences on our apps. We also include an update on Doppelganger, the most persistent Russian influence operation we’ve disrupted since 2017. Finally, as we look back to 2024 with its many elections around the world, we’re sharing some key insights into the global threat landscape. You can read the full report here.
Widely Viewed Content Report
In Q3, we updated the title of “Page Follower” to “Public Follower” to reflect an internal change of how we track public following. This change didn’t impact how users viewed content. You can read the full report here.
Government Requests for User Data
During the first half of 2024, global government requests for user data increased 7.4% from 271,692 to 323,846. India is the top requester, with a 7.7% increase in requests, followed by the United States, Brazil and Germany.
In the US, we’ve received 81,884 requests– an increase of 11.6% – from the first half of 2024, which includes non-disclosure orders prohibiting Meta from notifying the user 76.6% of the time. Emergency requests accounted for 5.2% of the total request in the US, slightly declining from the second half of 2023.
Additionally, as a result of transparency updates introduced in the 2016 USA Freedom Act, the US government lifted non-disclosure orders on 14 National Security Letters. These requests, along with the US government’s authorization letters, are available here.
We continue to support the NDO Fairness Act, which is now under consideration in the U.S. Senate, which will improve our users’ ability to receive notice when their data is the subject of a legal demand.
Content Restrictions Based on Local Law
For many years, we’ve published biannual transparency reports, which include the volume of content restrictions we make when content is reported as violating local law but doesn’t go against our Community Standards. This report includes information where in limited countries we are obligated to automatically restrict content, at scale and in country, based on local law requirements, which is reflected in the comparatively higher volumes of content restrictions.
During this reporting period, the volume of content restrictions based on local law for Facebook and Instagram increased globally from 48 million in H2 2023 to over 149 million in the H1 2024, driven by obligations in Indonesia where over 148 million items were restricted under the Electronic Information and Transactions (EIT) Law and KOMINFO Regulation 5/2020 on Private Electronic Services Operator for gambling content.
We continually review our processes and protocols to help ensure the accuracy of our reporting. You can read more here.
NCMEC CyberTips
As part of our ongoing work to provide young people with safe, positive online experiences, we're continuing to provide more transparency into our efforts to find and report child exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). We began sharing this data last year.
In Q3 2024, we reported the following number of CyberTips to NCMEC from Facebook and Instagram:
Facebook and Instagram sent over 1.6 million NCMEC CyberTip reports for child sexual exploitation.
Of these reports, over 120 thousand involved inappropriate interactions with children. CyberTips relating to inappropriate interactions with children may include an adult soliciting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) directly from a minor or attempting to meet and cause harm to a child in person. These CyberTips also include cases where a child is in apparent imminent danger.
Over 1.5 million reports related to shared or re-shared photos and videos that contain CSAM.