Today, Meta announced that it has decided to expand this feature across Facebook and Instagram. Obviously, this system is not available for the most severe policy violations, so violating content will still be removed.
According to Meta, after running some tests this summer, those who successfully removed their first strikes for violating a policy were more likely to say they understood Facebook’s policy decisions and became less likely to do it again in the future.
The educational option is not available for the most serious violations of Community Standards, such as posting content that involves sexual exploitation, the sale of high-risk drugs or the glorification of dangerous organizations and individuals.
“We know that everyone makes mistakes, and most people on our apps don’t mean to break our rules, just as we know that we also sometimes make mistakes in our enforcement that could cause confusion to the person who posted the content. We hope this program will improve the experiences of people on our apps, and we’ll continue to adjust the program in the future as needed,” explains Meta in a blog post.
If you’re a Facebook or Instagram creator (or both), here is how this feature works. If you violate a policy for the first time, you should now see a notification along with two options: Appeal the Decision, or Remove the Warning.Simply select Remove the Warning and the app will guide you through a short educational course on the policy you’ve just violated. After successfully completing the course, the strike and any restrictions that came with it will be removed.
It’s important to mention that this option is only available once in a 12-month period for first-time strikes on Facebook profiles, Pages, and Instagram profiles.
The new feature should now be available to all creators on Facebook, while Instagram creators should start seeing it in the coming days.