Meta Oversight Board wants clear rules against child marriage

Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, should clarify rules to ensure deletion of posts promoting forced marriages includes child marriages, the company’s oversight board says. “Child marriage, which disproportionately affects girls, is a form of forced marriage and gender-based violence and discrimination.”

In January 2024, an Instagram user posted a short video from a beauty salon in Iran. In the video, a beautician puts make-up on a child and prepares him for his wedding. Meta withdrew the post after complaints and the board agrees with this decision, but wants better definitions against forced marriages.

In Farsi, the child confirms that she is 14 years old, and when asked by the beautician, she reveals that the groom’s family had expressed persistent wishes before her father “handed her over” to them.

The beautician and the child talk about prioritizing marriage over education and admire the results of the makeup transformation.

The content was viewed around 10.9 million times.

The board recommends Meta:

• Amend the human exploitation policy to explicitly state that forced marriages include child marriages.
• Additionally, amend the policy defining child marriage in line with international human rights standards to include marriage and informal unions of children under 18 years of age.
• Provide human evaluators with explicit guidance on including child marriage in the definition of forced marriage.

The committee says its recommendations aim to “clarify Meta’s public language and internal policies to ensure such content is removed and to clarify that forced marriages include child marriages and affect children under 18 years of age.”

Child marriage, which the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights defines as “any formal marriage or informal union between a child under 18 years of age and an adult or other child,” is considered a form of forced marriage and a human rights violation by international and regional bodies.

Child marriages are legal in certain jurisdictions, but in others they are considered a violation of human rights.