Case Summary and Outcome

The Oversight Board issued a summary decision overturning Meta’s removal of two Facebook posts that shared a news article reporting on the conviction and sentencing of a leader of the far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys. The Board highlighted the challenges Meta faces when enforcing exceptions for news reporting under its Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy. It noted that the enforcement errors in these cases directly affected users’ ability to share external links from legitimate news outlets, particularly when such content mentioned designated “dangerous” groups without promoting them. The Board emphasized that, despite Meta’s previous efforts to reduce system errors, more effective safeguards are still needed to prevent the unwarranted removal of content with clear public interest value.

*The Oversight Board is a separate entity from Meta and will provide its independent judgment on both individual cases and questions of policy. Both the Board and its administration are funded by an independent trust. The Board has the authority to decide whether Facebook and Instagram should allow or remove content. The Board issues full decisions and summary decisions. Decisions, except summary decisions, are binding unless implementing them could violate the law. The Board can also choose to issue recommendations on the company’s content policies. Summary decisions are a transparency mechanism, providing information to the public on Meta’s decision making and the Board’s recommendations relating to cases where Meta reversed its original decision on its own accord, after receiving notice from the Board about the appeal.

Facts

In September 2023, two users posted a link to a news article about the conviction and sentencing of a Proud Boys leader for participating in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol with no comment or caption. The article included a picture of a group of men wearing T-shirts with the text “proud boys” and the group’s logo. The posts did not include any comments or captions.

The Proud Boys is a far-right group known for violence and extremism, highlighted by their role in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Later, many of the group members were prosecuted for their participation in the attack.

Meta originally removed the posts from Facebook for violating its Dangerous Organizations and Individuals (DOI) policy after a review by Meta’s automated systems. The policy prohibited representation, support, or unclear references to groups and individuals that Meta designates as “dangerous”, including the Proud Boys. However, the policy allowed content reporting on, condemning, or naturally discussing these groups and individuals.

The two users appealed Meta’s decisions to the Oversight Board (OSB). “After the Board brought these two appeals to Meta’s attention, the company reversed its original decisions and restored both
posts.” [p. 2]

Decision Overview

The Oversight Board issued a summary decision on February 27, 2027. The main issue it analyzed was whether Meta’s removal of the two posts—which included a link to a news article about the Proud Boys—was compatible with the company’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy and human rights obligations. These cases, as the Board noted, illustrated challenges associated with the enforcement of exceptions under the DOI policy (particularly the news reporting exception). Such errors have a direct impact on users’ ability to share external links from a news outlet when they mention groups or organizations designated as “dangerous,” without assessing the content’s neutrality and public value.

In their appeal to the OSB, both users submitted that their posts did not violate the DOI policy. The user in the first case claimed that they reposted the news article to inform people about the conviction of a Proud Boys leader. They also argued that if the post had been reviewed by a human being, they would not have removed the content. The second user also argued that the purpose of the post was to inform people that justice had been done in a terrorism case. They also criticized automated content moderation systems, underscoring their lack of contextual analysis.

For its part, the company held that the posts did not violate Meta’s DOI policy. It acknowledged the removal was incorrect as the content fell under an exception that permits users “to report on, condemn or neutrally discuss” [p. 3] dangerous organizations and individuals.

At the outset of its analysis, the Board recalled several of its previous recommendations regarding the DOI policy and the news reporting exception. First, the OSB underscored the Shared Al Jazeera Post decision to highlight that it has suggested Meta “add criteria and illustrative examples to Meta’s DOI policy to increase understanding of exceptions, specifically around neutral discussion and news reporting,” which Meta has implemented as demonstrated through published information. Moreover, the Board recalled two recommendations from the Mention of the Taliban in News Reporting case, where it urged Meta to 1) assess the accuracy of reviewers enforcing the news reporting allowance to identify systematic issues behind enforcement errors, and 2) to conduct a review of its high-impact false positive removals—which disproportionately restrict freedom of expression. Meta reported that it has implemented these two recommendations but failed to produce further information. As a result, the implementation could not be verified by the Board.

The OSB expressed concerns that, despite Meta’s report that it had implemented the Board’s previous recommendations, the removals in these cases showed that more effective measures were still needed. It emphasized that the full implementation of the aforementioned recommendations, alongside the publication of information demonstrating its successful implementation, could reduce the number of incorrect removals of news reports under the DOI policy.

Considering this, the Oversight Board overturned Meta’s original decision to remove the two Facebook posts and acknowledged the company’s correction of the initial errors.