Meta ‧ Community Guidelines · January 11, 2024

On 11 January, Meta updated the section of its Community Guidelines that outlines the principles for the treatment of dangerous organizations and individuals. Namely, the platform has changed the description of the policy rationale as well as the definition of the glorification of dangerous entities that included several key features. 

In this new definition, Meta has removed the somewhat abstract feature that characterised glorification as “speaking positively about a designated entity’s violence or hate”. At the same time, the platform has elaborated upon two other features, rephrasing them in a clearer way. Most importantly, Meta has shifted its focus from “legitimizing the cause” to “legitimizing … the violent … acts of a designated entity”. 

Changes in Meta’s Community Guidelines tracked by Platform Governance Archive

Finally, Meta has provided a newer example of “ideological alignment” with a dangerous entity. It underscores the fact that not only active support counts as such alignment (“I stand with…”), but also expression of mere sympathy to a given organisation (“I wish I can join…”).               

This post is based on data curated by the Platform Governance Archive (PGA), collected with Open Terms Archive. The full data set as well as options to monitor and track changes are available here.