Meta’s Oversight Board takes up permanent ban in landmark case

The Meta Oversight Board is addressing an issue focusing on Meta’s ability to permanently disable user accounts. A permanent ban is a drastic measure, preventing people from accessing their profiles, memories, their friends’ connections, and, in the case of creators and businesses, their ability to market and connect with fans and customers.

The organization notes that this is the first time in the organization’s five-year history as a policy advisor that banning persistent accounts has been a topic of focus for the Oversight Board.

The case being reviewed is not exactly an everyday user case. Instead, the case concerns a high-profile Instagram user who repeatedly violated Meta’s community standards by posting visual threats of violence against a female journalist, anti-gay slurs against politicians, content depicting a sexual act, allegations of misconduct against minorities, and more. The account did not accumulate enough strikes to be automatically disabled, but Meta made the decision to permanently ban the account.

The board’s materials did not name the account in question, but its recommendations could impact others who post content targeting public figures with abuse, harassment, and threats, as well as users who have had their accounts permanently banned without receiving transparent explanations.

Meta referred this specific case to the board, which involved five posts made in the previous year to permanently disable the account. The tech giant says it is seeking input on several key issues: how permanent bans can be addressed fairly, the effectiveness of its existing tools to protect public figures and journalists from repeated abuse and threats of violence, the challenges of identifying off-platform content, whether punitive measures effectively shape online behaviors, and best practices for transparent reporting of account enforcement decisions.

The decision to review the details of the case comes after a year in which users complained about mass bans with little information about the mistakes they had made. The issue affected Facebook groups, as well as individual account holders who believe automated moderation tools are to blame. Additionally, those who were banned complained that Meta’s paid support offering, Meta Verified, proved useless in helping them in these situations.

Whether the Oversight Board has any real influence to address issues on the Meta platform is still up for debate, of course.

The board has limited scope to effect change at the social networking giant, meaning it cannot force Meta to make broader policy changes or address systemic issues. Notably, the board is not consulted when CEO Mark Zuckerberg decides to make sweeping changes to company policies — such as his decision last year to relax hate speech restrictions. The board can make recommendations and can overturn specific content moderation decisions, but it is often slow to act. It also handles relatively few cases compared to the millions of moderation decisions Meta makes across its user base.

According to a December report, Meta has implemented 75% of the more than 300 recommendations the board issued, and Meta has consistently followed its content moderation decisions. Meta also recently sought the opinion of policy advisors on its implementation of a crowdsourced fact-checking feature, Community Notes.

After the Oversight Board issues its policy recommendations to Meta, the company has 60 days to respond. The Board also requests public comments on this topic, but these comments cannot be anonymous.