English below the video states that the hospital has been targeted by the “usurping
occupation,” a reference to the Israeli army, and tags human rights and news organizations.
Meta’s Violent and Graphic Content Community Standard, which applies to content on
Facebook and Instagram, prohibits “[v]ideos of people or dead bodies in non-medical
settings if they depict … [v]isible internal organs.” At the time of posting, the policy allowed
“[i]magery that shows the violent death of a person or people by accident or murder,”
provided that such content was placed behind a “mark as disturbing” warning screen and
was only visible to people over the age of 18. This rule was updated on November 29, after the
content in this case was restored, to clarify that the rule applies to the “moment of death or
the aftermath” as well as imagery of “a person experiencing a life-threatening event.”
Meta’s automated systems removed the content in this case for violating the Violent and
Graphic Content Community Standard. The user’s appeal against that decision was
automatically rejected because Meta’s classifiers indicated “a high confidence level” that the
content was violating. The user then appealed Meta’s decision to the Oversight Board.
Following the Board’s selection of this case, Meta said it could not conclusively determine
that the video showed visible internal organs. Meta therefore concluded that it should not
have removed this content, though it was on the “borderline” of violating. Meta further
explained that even if internal organs had been visible, the post should have been kept up
with a “mark as disturbing” warning screen as it was shared to raise awareness. The
company reiterated that, in line with the Graphic and Violent Content policy rationale, such
content is permitted when shared to raise awareness “about important issues such as
human-rights abuses, armed conflicts or acts of terrorism.”
Meta therefore reversed its original decision and restored the content with a warning screen.
The warning screen tells users that the content may be disturbing. Adult users can click
through to see the post, but Meta removes these posts from the feeds of Instagram users
under 18 and also removes them from recommendations to adult Instagram users. Meta also
added a separate instance of the same video to a Media Matching Service bank, so other
videos identical to this one would be automatically kept up with a warning screen and would
only be visible to people over the age of 18.
4. Justification for Expedited Review