The Meta Oversight Committee said Facebook needed to change its rules for human flesh searches

Back in April 2021, Facebook (now Meta) asked its Oversight Board to weigh the sharing of users' private home information on Facebook and Instagram. Since then, the oversight committee has issued its views on the matter. It noted that, among other things, Facebook should stop making exceptions for posts that share photos of their home address or private home.

Facebook's current privacy policy leaves some leeway for posts that share someone's private information, provided those details have previously been made available to the public "through news reports, court documents, press releases, or other sources."

Similarly, Meta's content moderators were told that if someone's private information was shared by five or more news organizations, then it should be considered public information. An example provided by the oversight board is that if someone's address meets Facebook's "public information" criteria, a photo of that person identified by their address would be considered permissible.

It's worth noting that, for now, these are suggestions for Meta and Facebook, not confirmed changes. While it is possible that we will see some (or all) of these recommendations implemented at some point in the future, this is not guaranteed.

The removal of the exception to "publicly available" private information was the main recommendation of the Oversight Committee, although he also proposed other changes. The committee argued that Facebook should set rules for its content moderators to ensure they know when content that may violate the platform's community standards will be escalated, but that content may also meet the "newsworthy" exception to maintain consistency with the "newsworthy" exception.

It also recommends ways for users to quickly (and effectively) report posts that share their private information and ask for them to be removed — as well as suggesting that Facebook explain its community standards and privacy invasion policies more clearly.

The Oversight Committee also made other exceptions for sharing private information. Assuming these exceptions are implemented, then users will be allowed to share photos of private homes, if private residences are the focus of a story, if it is the public residence of a political figure as a means of protest organizations, or if it is the user's own private residence, then users will be allowed to share photos of private residences.

Beyond that, the oversight committee recommended that Facebook strengthen its enforcement policies to allow users to add context to their claims and establish a channel of contact specifically targeted at victims of the breach so that everyone can access them — whether they use the platform itself or not.