Case Description
In January 2024, an Instagram user posted a short video in Farsi on their account. The account shares information about beauty salon services and a beauty school in Iran. In the video, a beautician prepares a 14-year-old girl for her wedding, with clips showing the child before and after her make-up session. The beautician and the child talk about education, age, marriage arrangements and the results of the make-up session.
The text overlay on the video states the child is the youngest bride of the year. The caption, also in Farsi, provides details for the beautician’s services. The content was viewed about 10.9 million times, received about 200,000 reactions, about 20,000 comments and was shared less than 1,000 times.
The content was reported by 203 users and was also detected and prioritized by Meta’s HERO system, which is designed to identify potentially violating content predicted to have a high likelihood of going viral. Following human review, Meta concluded the content did not violate any of its policies and kept it up.
In February 2024, the content was then escalated by one of Meta’s Trusted Partners for additional human review. At this stage, following policy and subject matter experts’ review, Meta removed the video for violating its Human Exploitation policy, which prohibits sharing “content that recruits people for, facilitates, or exploits people through any of the following forms of human trafficking: … [including] Forced marriages.” Meta informed the Board that it considers child marriage a form of forced marriage as minors under the age of 18 cannot fully consent.
The company explained that while the Human Exploitation policy does not explicitly prohibit support or praise for child marriage, it aims to eradicate all types of “exploitation of humans,” which includes supporting child marriage. This is especially relevant when the content may result in financial gain for the user.
Meta referred this case to the Board, noting that it represents tension in the company’s values of voice, safety, privacy and dignity. Meta considers this case significant and difficult because “it highlights the issue of promotion or glorification of human exploitation (including child marriage), which is not explicitly covered under [Meta’s] policies … and because child marriages are legal in certain jurisdictions but criticized as a violation of human rights law by others.”
The Board selected this case to assess the impact of Meta’s Human Exploitation and Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Nudity Community Standards on the rights of children, particularly girls involved in child marriages. It also provides an opportunity for the Board to consider how content should be moderated when gender norms differ significantly across the world. The case falls within the Board’s strategic priorities of Gender and Treating Users Fairly.
The Board would appreciate public comments that address:
- The religious, cultural, legal, economic and political landscape influencing child marriage practices in Iran, and the impact on women and girls.
- Similar factors that influence child marriage practices in countries, regions and communities (including indigenous peoples), where it is most common.
- How international human rights standards apply to child marriage and displays or expressions of praise or support for it.
- The impact on the human rights of children, especially girls, of marriage being allowed under the age of 18.
- Online trends in content about child marriage on social media and how they influence the social perception of this issue, particularly in countries and regions in which child marriage is most common.
- Whether Meta’s Human Exploitation and Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Nudity policies adequately protect the rights of children, especially girls, involved in child marriages, and how these policies should approach content depicting child marriage in general.
As part of its decisions, the Board can issue policy recommendations to Meta. While recommendations are not binding, Meta must respond to them within 60 days. As such, the Board welcomes public comments proposing recommendations that are relevant to this case.
Comments
Child marriage, a problem that mainly affects girls (99% of cases), deprives them of their childhood and exposes them to numerous dangers threatening their life and health: dropping out of school, exposure to domestic violence, early pregnancies leading to physical and psychological after-effects, family and social isolation,....
We deplore these practices and believe that platforms like Meta should not promote them. The case of the video of the 14-year-old Iranian girl, prepared by a beautician for her wedding, is scandalous. This video has been seen by 11 million people! This is not a question of freedom of expression, but rather of image rights, human dignity and, above all, child protection.
Platforms should commit to upholding the universal values of human, women's and children's rights, taking responsibility for moderating such content and treating it in the same way as content that offends human dignity. The efforts of organizations fighting against these practices would be amplified if they had the support of Meta and the entire digital ecosystem.
As activists in the field for the past six years, our voice on social media has been our primary means of advocacy against practices such as child marriage. We strive to moderate the hateful messages we receive when creating content that combats child marriage, a practice we find deeply deplorable. It is disheartening that content like the one described in the case study has space to proliferate on platforms that champion equity and human dignity.
We believe that we should not have to endure such content on platforms that are meant to uphold the values of dignity and human rights. Our comment on this subject is a cry for help, emphasizing the need for media, especially Meta, to assist us in this fight. This is a fight for a more equitable and just world for our children.
No makeup, no hairstyle, no dress and no medical examination can ever make a child “old enough” to be married. She may “look” old enough with makeup but that doesn’t mean she “is” old enough. The child must be governed by her biological age. As a member of the Girls Not Brides global coalition and spearheading Morocco’s 70 organization movement to end child marriage, our stipulation and demand at Project Soar is “18, no exceptions”. During the hundreds of child marriage workshops and community dialogues we hold with girls, boys, parents and community members, we say, “if a girl is growing up, she must not be growing out”. Because with marriage, too inevitably comes pregnancies, with all the health risks that children having children presents. It doest’t matter if it is Iran or Italy, Morocco or Monaco, children are children. A girl of 14 is never under any circumstance equipped for marriage - this is pedophilia and human exploitation. Facebook under no circumstances should be posting content that may be construed as accepting, supporting or glamorizing child marriage. There is no remaining neutral or “not having an opinion”. This content should be immediately flagged and removed. No need to wait for complaints.
Facebook must do better.
Oversight Board,
I believe that some things, some customs, that might be acceptable in certain cultures are completely inappropriate for the rest of the world.
A 14-year-old is still a child. Knowing this poor child's life is about to be destroyed and in such a repulsive way, is obscene for most of the world.
The creatures that allow this 'custom' are barbaric, their laws terrifying.
A child preparing for a wedding, by putting on make-up no less, at age 14 is despicable and does not need to be seen around the globe.
Everyone over the age of 18 who participates in the barbarous custom needs to be imprisoned.
In our country today it's not surprising that we all kind junk going on and violence but however when it comes our women and children we have to provide the rightful protection God wants us to them safe in my eyes I believe no one should be thinking about marriage or thing of any kind relationship especially at such early age of 14 years of age it is wrong and it shouldn't be broadcast and no such porn sexual activity be made public by using social media platforms and Facebook and it is against God's wishes I have seen it time and again please don't allow this on
تو ایران هنوز که هنوزه یه تعداد آدم‌هایی با افکار و روش های سنتی سعی در نگه داشتن گفته های بی منطق و اشتباه دین و مذاهبشون گفته هستم که اصلا ما که ایرانی هستیم به عقل اینجور آدما شک میکنیم و تعجب میکنیم ..واقعا یه تعداد از مردم عقلشون رو شستشو دادن و با گفته های چند صد سال قبل دارن رفتار میکنن بله اینجا هنوز خیلی کودک ها هستن که وقتی میبینی خانواده کودک جای اینکه باعث رشد فکر باز کودک باشه اونو هنوز عقلش رشد نکرده به مسیر زنگی اشتباه و فنا شدن فرزندشون به خاطر عقاید مسخره و اشتباه میدن..این کار قابل بخشش به هیچ عنوان نیست