Case Summary and Outcome

On December 12, 2024, the Oversight Board assessed Meta’s decision regarding four posts —one on Facebook and three on Instagram—containing videos showing the assassination of Mexican mayoral candidate José Alfredo Cabrera Barrientos. The Board upheld Meta’s decision to keep the first two posts online under its newsworthiness allowance and to remove the third post. The Board overturned Meta’s decision to remove the fourth post as the Board saw it should have benefited from the newsworthiness allowance as well. The Board expressed concerns about the effectiveness of the newsworthiness allowance and recommended an exception for news reporting, condemnation, and awareness raising regarding designated events.

*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. These decisions are binding, unless implementing them could violate the law. The Board can also choose to issue recommendations on the company’s content policies.

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Facts

On May 29, 2024, José Alfredo Cabrera Barrientos, a mayoral candidate in Coyuca de Benitez, Guerrero, Mexico, was assassinated during a campaign rally. The following day, four social media posts—one on Facebook and three on Instagram—shared or reshared videos showing Cabrera Barrientos interacting with supporters before a gun was pointed at him, followed by blurred footage of gunshots. Captions in Spanish detailed the incident. All posts were either posted or reshared by news media accounts based in Latin America.

Meta classified the assassination as a violating violent event under its Dangerous Organizations and Individuals (DOI) policy, which prohibits sharing third-party imagery of violent attacks on identifiable victims. The company previously flagged a similar video as violating content, adding it to its Media Matching Service (MMS) database to automatically detect and remove duplicates. This action sought to restrict the dissemination of graphic material related to the attack.

The first post was shared by a large media organization with a caption highlighting that 23 candidates for political office were murdered during Mexico’s current election cycle. The video’s audio included a statement from the state prosecutor confirming the shooter’s death and Cabrera Barrientos’ security status at the time of the attack. The post received around 59,000 views.

The second post was also shared by a large media organization and included a user-added sensitivity warning. The caption reported Guerrero’s governor condemnation of the killing. The post received a million views.

Meta’s automated systems flagged both posts for removal under its DOI policy. However, after human review, subject matter experts granted a newsworthiness allowance to the content due to their high public interest value, allowing the posts to remain online with a “Mark as Disturbing” warning screen.

In the third case, a user reshared a media organization’s video showing the candidate moments before his assassination, including the gun being aimed at him. The caption reported the attack without additional content and included a message (repeated in the video) directing viewers to an “uncensored” version on Telegram. It received around 17,000 views.

A media organization shared the fourth post, with a caption reporting that one attacker was shot at the scene and three others were injured alongside the candidate. This post received around 11,000 views. The last two posts were removed after an MMS bank identified them.

Meta referred the first two posts to the Oversight Board (OSB), while the users behind the last two posts appealed Meta’s decisions to the Board.

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Decision Overview

On 12 December 2024, the Oversight Board issued a decision on the matter. The main issue it analyzed was whether the posts containing a graphic video of an assassination complied with Meta’s content policies and whether the company should have removed or kept them to comply with its human rights obligations.

The user who posted the first post did not submit a statement to the Board. The second user highlighted the public interest in reporting about the assassination, considering the electoral context of Mexico. The third and fourth posters protested the removal of their posts, underscoring that they were reporting on news about violence.

For its part, Meta explained that it designated the assassination of José Alfredo Cabrera Barrientos as a violating violent event under its DOI policy. The company said that under this designation, it removes imagery related to the event as the removal decreases copycat behaviors and helps to avoid “the spread of content that raises the profile of and may have propaganda value to the perpetrators.” [p. 10] Meta also cited the privacy and dignity of victims and their loved ones as another reason for the designation and consequent removals.

The company argued that the scope of its newsworthiness allowances for this type of content is rather narrow. Regarding the first two posts, Meta said it granted the allowance due to the news outlets’ wide national reach and the captions that contextualized the footage. While the company recognized the potential risk of copycat attacks and the dignity of the victim’s family, it highlighted the high public interest value of the content and the editorial steps taken by the media outlets to report on the event without sensationalizing it. Additionally, Meta stated that it added “a label…to let users know the posts were allowed for the purpose of public awareness” [p. 11] alongside a “Mark as Disturbing” warning screen to the first two posts.

To Meta, the third and fourth posts did not merit a newsworthiness allowance as they were not posted by “well-known news outlets, nor did they contextualize the video.” [p. 12] The company noted that the third and fourth users sensationalized the footage as the third user directed users to uncensored images and the fourth emphasized the virality of the footage on social media. Meta emphasized that the decision to remove the third and fourth posts complied with the requirements of legality, legitimacy, and necessity and proportionality, under international human rights law. The company stated that the removal of the content, without applying strikes to the posting users, was the least restrictive measure it could implement to balance the different interests at stake.

1. Compliance with Meta’s content policies;

The Board noted that all four posts included footage of Cabrera Barrientos and the moment the gun was pointed at him, which violated Meta’s prohibition on “third-party imagery depicting the moment of [designated] attacks on visible victims.” [p. 13] It agreed with Meta that the first two posts merited a newsworthiness allowance and that the posts should be kept online with a “Mark as Disturbing” warning screen and a newsworthy label. The OSB applauded the application of a newsworthy label as the practice corresponded to the Board’s previous recommendations in the Colombia Protests and Sudan Graphic Video cases, where it held that platforms’ users should be informed about posts receiving a newsworthiness allowance.

However, the OSB disagreed with Meta’s decision on the fourth post. To it, there was no material difference between the fourth post and the first two, as they all showed the shooting—an event that had a high public interest value during the electoral cycle. The Board disagreed that the fourth post sensationalized the event and argued that the reference to the footage’s virality highlighted the post’s significance to the public. The OSB also highlighted that the fourth post included “other relevant details on the number of casualties, including that the shooter was killed at the event, and the statement released by the Governor of Guerrero.” [p.14]

Furthermore, the Board underlined the significant risks news outlets and journalists face in Mexico and considered those risks to be relevant context for its newsworthiness analysis. Additionally, the OSB held that the victim’s public figure status lessened privacy concerns in the case. Considering this, the Board stated that the first two posts, as well as the fourth, deserved newsworthiness allowances as the public interest value outweighed the risks of harm.

As for the third post, the OSB was divided. The majority agreed with Meta’s decision not to grant a newsworthiness allowance as the content was not reporting, raising awareness about or condemning the attack. The majority considered that the user’s message directing viewers to an uncensored version of the video on Telegram was aimed explicitly at circumventing “the prohibition on sharing third-party imagery of attacks on visible victims.” [p. 15] The Board verified that the Telegram channel the user highlighted did in fact include graphic violent imagery, including the candidate’s assassination.

A minority of the OSB considered that the third post deserved a newsworthiness allowance as well. To it, content linking to another platform showing graphic violent footage should not be considered as publication of the content itself.

2. Compliance with Meta’s human rights responsibilities

The Board utilized the three-part test enshrined in Article 19(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to assess whether Meta’s decisions (to keep or remove the posts) were compatible with its international human rights obligations towards the right to freedom of expression.

a. Legality (clarity and accessibility of the rules)

The legality part of the three-part test requires restrictions on freedom of expression to be based on rules that are clear and accessible to users and to those who are tasked with enforcing them.

The Board highlighted its previous recommendation in the Footage of Moscow Terrorist Attack case for Meta to structure its rules concerning designated events to be more precise. While the OSB reiterated its recommendation, it concluded that the DOI policy was sufficiently clear in explaining that posting footage of designated events on visible victims is prohibited.

b. Legitimate aim

The Board stated that the DOI policy pursued the legitimate aims of protecting the rights to life and non-discrimination and equality, as held in the Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces Video Captive,  Hostages Kidnapped from Israel and Greek 2023 Elections Campaign cases. The OSB also recognized the protection of the right to privacy of victims as a legitimate aim, as stipulated in Video After Nigeria Church Attack case.

c. Necessity and proportionality

The Board acknowledged Meta’s aim for its designation policy, which prioritizes safety, privacy, and preemptive removal of violent content through MMS banks to disrupt harmful propaganda, protect victims’ dignity, and deter copycat acts. The OSB considered that adopting narrower content moderation rules could lead to underenforcement, allowing violent footage to remain accessible and to be repurposed for harmful ends, as seen in the Footage of Moscow Terrorist Attack case.

However, the Board underscored that not all content depicting designated attacks inherently glorifies criminal activity or poses harm. On this point, it expressed concern that “policies that prioritize overenforcement, regardless of context, pose risks to freedom of expression, access to information and public participation.” [p. 18]

Subsequently, the OSB highlighted some of Meta’s policy tools to avoid overenforcement. The first one is the removal of content by MMS banks without imposing strikes, which ensures proportionality.

The second is the newsworthiness allowance. On this topic, the Board said it had previously discussed the shortcomings of the allowance’s efficiency in the Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces Video Captive and Armenian Prisoners of War Video cases. According to the OSB, as held in the aforementioned cases, the allowance is restricted to escalated cases. Furthermore, journalists and news outlets that are not part of Meta’s cross-check program face significant barriers in achieving the allowance.

Upon studying the specific cases, the Board concluded that it was neither necessary nor proportionate to remove the first, second, and fourth posts as they did not incite to copycat behavior. Experts consulted by the OSB clarified that criminal groups in Mexico share content to intimidate, not to recruit. Moreover, the Board highlighted that the posts were shared by news outlets reporting on the assassination days before elections and that the removal of any of the posts undermined freedom of expression.

The OSB recalled the Footage of Moscow Terrorist Attack case again, to argue that images humanize victims and elicit moral outrage, sympathy, awareness of violence and encourage accountability. The Board also highlighted the significant risks journalists and news outlets face in Mexico when reporting on organized crime and the victim’s public figure status.

The OSB considered that applying a “Mark as Disturbing” screen under Meta’s Violent and Graphic policy was a less restrictive measure. Nonetheless, the Board acknowledged the consequences of the warning screens: 1. Inaccessibility of the content to people under 18, and 2. removal of content from recommendations to users who do not follow the account (Al-Shifa Hospital and Hostages Kidnapped From Israel cases)

Regarding the third post, the majority of the Board stated that the risks it imposed outweighed the public interest and that removing the content was necessary and proportionate. The majority held that the post lacked indications of the user’s intent to report on the event or condemn it. This fact, along with the linking to the graphic uncensored footage, clearly violated the DOI policy, the majority concluded.

In its proportionality assessment, the Board applauded Meta’s approach not to apply strikes to the accounts that posted the third and fourth posts. Still, the OSB underscored the importance of strikes in achieving proportionality, such as in the Iranian Make-up Video for a Child Marriage case.

The Board also considered that the newsworthiness allowance was not the most effective or least restrictive approach available to Meta due to its previously mentioned shortcomings. In the Footage of Moscow Terrorist Attack case, the OSB already concluded that an exception for reporting, condemnation or awareness-raising about designated events was the most effective way to protect freedom of expression while mitigating the risk of harm to privacy and copycat attacks. Under this proposed exception, content should have a “Mark as Disturbing” warning screen. The Board reiterated that the company could require users to clearly show their intent in order to benefit from the exception.

Under this proposed framework, the OSB held that it would have reached the same conclusion in regards to the first, second and fourth posts since they would be considered news reporting, while the third post would still have been removed as the user did not clearly indicate their intent to report, condemn or raise awareness. The Board acknowledged that the victim in this case was identifiable (contrary to the Footage of Moscow Terrorist Attack case); however, the victim’s public figure status and the fact that he was not depicted in a humiliating or degrading manner reduced privacy concerns.

Accordingly, the OSB upheld Meta’s decision to leave up the first and second posts, and to remove the third one. Conversely, it overturned Meta’s decision to remove the fourth post, requiring it to be restored with a “Mark as Disturbing” warning screen.

3. Policy advisory statement:  

The Board reiterated its first recommendation from the Footage of Moscow Terrorist Attack case, requesting Meta to implement an exception for reporting, condemnation or awareness-raising about designated events while applying a “Mark as Disturbing” warning screen.

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