Oversight Board to review Meta approach to disabling accounts

Meta’s Oversight Board announced new cases for consideration. The Board will assess whether Meta was right to permanently disable a user account, following a referral in which the company requested guidance from the Board. This is the first time the Board has taken a case on Meta’s approach to permanently disabling accounts, the Board said. In 2025, Meta permanently disabled a widely followed Instagram account for repeatedly violating the company’s Community Standards. Meta referred its decision to the Board, pointing to the challenges of respecting political speech while following its account disablement rules when users engage in patterns of abuse, including against public figures and for threats against female journalists. Meta referred five posts made in the year before they permanently disabled the Instagram account. Multiple posts included visual threats of violence and harassment against a female journalist. Other posts featured anti-gay slurs against prominent politicians and content depicting a sex act, alleging misconduct against minorities. Meta determined that the posts violated the Violence and Incitement, Bullying and Harassment, Hateful Conduct, and Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity Community Standards. The company removed each post from the platform and applied a strike to the account after each violation. The account came to the attention of Meta staff, who reported it to the company’s internal experts for review. They determined that the account demonstrated a persistent pattern of repeated violations of the company’s policies over the previous year and posed a safety risk, as some of the referred posts called for violence that could lead to death. While the account had not yet accrued enough strikes to be automatically disabled, this risk, combined with the account’s multiple violations of Meta’s policies, led to the decision to permanently disable the account. Meta’s Account Integrity policy notes that the company may disable accounts that persistently violate its policies, and in its referral, the company explained that it also disables accounts that demonstrate a clear intent to violate its policies. Meta noted that decisions to disable accounts can also be made outside of the strike system on a case-by-case basis, considering a user’s behavior and activity.