Standard do not align fully with the rationale of the policy, which sets out the aims of the
policy (See Sudan Graphic Video and Video After Nigeria Church Attack). The Board
reiterates the importance of recommendations no. 1 and no. 2 in the Sudan Graphic Video
case, which called on Meta to amend its Violent and Graphic Content Community Standard to
allow videos of people or dead bodies when shared for the purpose of raising awareness of or
documenting human-rights abuses (that case concerned visible dismemberment.) Meta has
conducted a policy development process in response to these recommendations and intends
to report on its progress in its next quarterly update to the Board. In the Board’s view, this
recommendation should apply to the rules for videos showing visible internal organs, and
specifically provide for warning screens as an enforcement measure where the raising
awareness (including factual reporting) and condemnation exception is engaged.
Under Article 19, para. 3 of the ICCPR, expression may be restricted for a defined and limited
list of reasons. The Board has previously found that the Violent and Graphic Content policy
legitimately aims to protect the rights of others, including the privacy of the depicted
individual (See Sudan Graphic Video and Video After Nigeria Church Attack). The present
case demonstrates, additionally, that restricting access to the content for people under 18
served the legitimate aim of protecting the right to health of minors (Convention on the
Rights of the Child, Article 24).
The principle of necessity and proportionality provides that any restrictions on freedom of
expression “must be appropriate to achieve their protective function; they must be the least
intrusive instrument amongst those which might achieve their protective function; [and] they
must be proportionate to the interest to be protected” ( General Comment No. 34, para. 34).
The Board has previously found in relation to violent and graphic content that a warning
screen “does not place an undue burden on those who wish to see the content while
informing others about the nature of the content and allowing them to decide whether to see
it or not” (See Sudan Graphic Video). Warning screens prevent users from unwillingly seeing
potentially disturbing content. Victims’ rights are further protected by Meta’s policy to
remove videos and photos that show the violent death of someone (or its immediate
aftermath) when a family member requests this. The content in this case can be
distinguished from that in the Russian Poem case, which showed a still image of a body lying
on the ground at long range, where the face of the victim was not visible, and where there
were no clear visual indicators of violence. Applying a warning screen in that case was
inconsistent with Meta’s guidance to reviewers and not a necessary or proportionate
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