Today, July 15, 2025, the Oversight Board selected a case bundle appealed by Instagram users regarding two photo carousel posts shared during National Eating Disorder Awareness Weeks in separate years.
The first piece of content, posted in 2023, concerns a caption that shared a personal account of experiencing an eating disorder, expressing a desire to raise awareness, and conveying gratitude for support.
The second piece of content, posted in 2025, concerns images with text from a user who self-identifies as a mental health professional. The images with text provide advice on how to talk about the weight and size of people perceived to be skinny or under-weight, includes examples of inappropriate statements, advises people not to guess someone’s clothing size, and suggests avoiding commenting that people may be wasting away. The accompanying caption notes that while the user has not personally experienced an eating disorder, people have made comments about their perceived low weight.
Upon initial review, Meta took down the first piece of content entirely and one photo in the photo carousel of the second piece of content for violating our policy on Suicide, Self-Injury and Eating Disorders, as laid out in the Community Standards. However, upon additional review, we determined we removed these pieces of content in error and reinstated the posts. While Meta prohibits “intentionally or unintentionally celebrat[ing] or promot[ing] suicide, self-injury or eating disorders,” our policy does allow users to “share their experiences, raise awareness about these issues, and seek support from one another.”
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.
We welcome the Oversight Board's decision on this case bundle. The Board overturned Meta's original decisions to fully remove one post and to remove part of a second photo carousel. Meta previously reinstated this content and, as a result, no further action will be taken on the case content.
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 recommendation provided by the Board, we will update this post with an initial response.