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2020-005-FB-UA
On December 1, 2020, the Oversight Board selected a case appealed by someone on Facebook regarding a post which contained an alleged quote from Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany.
Meta took down this content for violating our policy on dangerous individuals and organizations, as laid out in the Facebook Community Standards.
Case decision
On January 28, 2021, the board overturned Meta's decision on this case. Meta acted to comply with the board’s decision immediately, and this content has been reinstated.
Recommendations
On February 25, 2021, Meta responded to the board’s recommendations for this case. We are committing to take action on 2 and still assessing the feasibility on 1.
Recommendation 1 (committed to action)Ensure that users are always notified of the Community Standards Facebook is enforcing.
Our commitment: We’ve fixed the mistake that led to the user not being notified about the Community Standard used for our enforcement action.
Considerations: People should be able to understand our decisions when we take action on their content. This is why we’ve worked to ensure a consistent level of detail is provided when content is removed from our platforms, specifically by referencing at least the Community Standard or Community Guideline in question.
Next steps: After the board surfaced this issue, we fixed the mistake.
Recommendation 2 (committed to action) Explain and provide examples of the application of key terms used in the Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy. These should align with the definitions used in Meta’s Internal Implementation Standards.
Our commitment: We commit to adding language to the Dangerous Individuals and Organizations Community Standard clearly explaining our intent requirements for this policy. We also commit to increasing transparency around definitions of “praise,” “support,” and “representation.”
Considerations: Meta agrees with the board that we can be clearer about how we define concepts like “praise,” “support” and “representation,” and we’re committed to increasing transparency here. Ahead of sharing more details about these terms, we need to ensure that this information doesn’t inadvertently allow bad actors to circumvent our enforcement mechanisms. Over the next few months, our teams will determine the best way to explain these terms and how they are used in our policy.
Next steps: We will add language to our Dangerous Individuals and Organizations Community Standard within a few weeks explaining that we may remove content if the intent is not made clear. We will also add definitions of “praise,” “support” and “representation” within a few months.
Recommendation 3 (assessing feasibility) Provide a public list of the organizations and individuals designated “dangerous” under the Dangerous Individuals and Organizations Community Standard.
Our commitment: We commit to increasing transparency around our Dangerous Individuals and Organizations Policy. In the short term, we will update the Community Standard and link to all of our Newsroom content related to Dangerous Individuals and Organizations so that people can access it with one click.”
Considerations: Ahead of sharing more details about these terms, we need to ensure that this information will not allow bad actors to circumvent our enforcement mechanisms.
Our teams need more time to fully evaluate whether sharing examples of designations will help people better understand our policy, or if we should publish a wider list. Before publishing, we also have to be confident it will not jeopardize the safety of our employees
Next steps: We will update the link in the Community Standards within a few weeks. We will continue to work toward more clarity on our Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policies while protecting the safety of our employees and platform.
