Just the Facts
on the Oversight Board
What is the Oversight Board?
The Oversight Board decides if content should stay on Facebook and Instagram.
We created the Oversight Board because we don’t think we should make those decisions alone.
This independent group of experts reviews important decisions we make and helps us balance free speech and safety.
The Oversight Board is separate from Meta.
Independence means the board makes its own decisions, even if Meta disagrees. No one who works for Meta can be on the board — not even their spouses! Board members can’t be former Meta employees or majority stakeholders in the company. And Meta can’t fire board members.
The board is made up of experts and civic leaders from a variety of professional backgrounds, cultures, opinions and beliefs. Having board members with different perspectives from around the world is critical to reflect the diversity of the people who use our apps.
When the Oversight Board makes a decision, Meta has to follow it.
The board’s decisions are binding, as long as implementing them won’t violate the law. The board also makes recommendations on how we should handle similar scenarios going forward. These include suggestions to further clarify our policies and improve processes for reviewing content. We’ve implemented all decisions made by the board, and most of the recommendations as well.
Decisions vs Recommendations
DECISIONS
Decisions are things like: reinstate a post that we previously removed.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendations are things like: further clarify what types of phrases are considered hate speech under our policy.
How it works
If you disagree with our decision to take down or keep up a post, you can ask us to review it. After that, if we stick to our original decision, you can appeal to the Oversight Board.
