medical condition includes serious physical injury.
* Case summaries provide an overview of the case and do not have precedential value.
Full case decision
1. Decision summary
The Oversight Board overturns Meta’s original decision to leave up a Facebook post that
mocks a target of gender-based violence. Meta has acknowledged that its original decision
was wrong, and that the content violates its policy on Bullying and Harassment. The Board
recommends that Meta undertakes a policy development process to establish a policy aimed
at addressing content that normalizes gender-based violence through praise, justification,
celebration or mocking of gender-based violence. The Board understands that Meta is
conducting a policy development process which, among other issues, is considering how to
address praise of gender-based violence. This recommendation is in support of a more
thorough approach to limiting the harms caused by the normalization of gender-based
violence.
2. Case description and background
In May 2021, a Facebook user in Iraq posted a photo with a caption in Arabic. The photo
shows a woman with visible marks of a physical attack, including bruises on her face and
body. The caption begins by warning women about making mistakes when writing to their
husbands. The caption states that the woman in the photo wrote a letter to her husband,
which the husband misunderstood, according to the caption, due to the woman’s
typographical error in writing the letter. According to the post, the husband thought the
woman asked him to bring her a “donkey,” while in fact, she was asking him for a “veil.” In
Arabic, the words for “donkey” and “veil” look similar ( " "حمارand ")”خمار. The caption then
mocks the situation and concludes that the woman got what she deserved as a result of the
mistake. There are several laughing and smiling emojis throughout the post.
According to several sources, the woman depicted in the photograph is a Syrian activist who
had been imprisoned by the regime of Bashar Al-Assad and later beaten by individuals
believed to be affiliated with the regime. Her image has been shared on social media in the
past. The caption does not name her, but her face is clearly visible. The post also includes a