Every social media platform has a set of community guidelines that it imposes on users to keep them safe online – from themselves as well as from other people, businesses, and organizations.
In the past, we covered YouTube and Threads. Now, we’re tackling Facebook community guidelines, just in time for you to start planning your Facebook content strategy for 2025.
What Are You NOT Allowed To Post or Do on Facebook?
All the things that you are NOT allowed to post or do on Facebook are outlined in their Community Standards.
Below, we’ve provided a brief summary of those standards, which ensure that the posts you publish and the way you interact with other users are compatible with their five primary values: voice, authenticity, safety, privacy, and dignity.
1. Violence and Criminal Behavior
Facebook will remove any posts that incite, threaten, encourage, promote, praise, support, represent, facilitate, or lead people to believe that you provide or engage with any of the following entities or activities:
- Violence against other people or groups
- Dangerous organizations and individuals (i.e., terrorist groups, violent actors, etc.)
- Harmful or criminal acts
- Fraud and deception (i.e., loan sharks, phishing, etc.)
In addition, Facebook prohibits the purchase, sale, trade, donation, or gifting of these restricted goods and services:
- Firearms
- High-risk drugs
- Non-medical drugs
- Pharmaceutical drugs
- Marijuana
- Endangered species of wildlife or plants
- Live non-endangered animals (except livestock)
- Human blood
- Alcohol or tobacco
- Weight loss products that contain a “miracle” claim
- Historical artifacts
- Entheogens
- Hazardous goods and materials
2. Safety
Facebook’s specific measures regarding community safety are designed to protect people from coming to harm or being intimidated on the platform.
Topics and behaviors that Facebook limits or even prohibits are listed below.
- Suicide and self-injury
- Child exploitation, abuse, and nudity
- Adult sexual exploitation
- Bullying and harassment
- Human exploitation
- Private information or personally identifiable information (i.e., government IDs, medical records, personal phone numbers, personal email addresses, etc.)
We do want to note that Facebook allows its users to discuss the items on the above list. For example, they may allow a suicide survivor to share their story. What it doesn’t allow is the solicitation, encouragement, incitement, or glorification of any of those things.
3. Objectionable Content
Objectionable content is content that contains imagery or topics that the majority of people find offensive. It includes:
- Hate speech
- Violent and graphic content
- Adult nudity and sexual activity
- Sexual solicitation
There are a few situations where Facebook may allow posts that contain “objectionable” photos, videos, or language.
In addition, users may also be allowed to post about adult nudity if:
- They are sharing health-related information;
- The subject in the photo or video is breastfeeding;
- Their post is about a painting, sculpture, or some other art piece.
4. Integrity and Authenticity
A big factor in the creation of safe, wholesome content for people on Facebook to enjoy is holding creators accountable for their integrity and authenticity. To that end, Facebook’s Community Standards outline several policies that cut down on these common dishonest (and in some cases harmful) activities.
The bottom line is that if you’re going to post on Facebook, you should actively avoid scamming or deceiving your followers. Easy, right? Finally, Facebook prohibits posting content that violates someone else’s copyright or trademark claims. In other words, you should never post an image or video that doesn’t belong to you and claim it as your own. With all that said about what you can’t post, what can you post on Facebook without landing in serious trouble? The answer is, quite a bit! There’s actually no limit to what you can post if you’re smart, creative, and committed to adhering to Facebook’s Community Standards. Below are some examples of common Facebook Page posts that – as long as they don’t feature or promote graphic sex, violent threats, racial slurs, etc. – are perfectly fine to add to your Page. If your post violates Facebook’s Community Standards, your post will get taken down – period. It doesn’t matter which policy you went up against. If you don’t agree with the reason that they removed it, though, you can dispute it by going to your Support Inbox under Settings on Facebook, open the message that the platform sent you about your post, and click disagree with decision. However, there are cases where the violation is so severe, or you’ve committed so many offenses in a row, that you’ll suffer even worse consequences: having your Facebook account disabled or terminated. The answer is: it’s up to Facebook’s discretion. Let’s elaborate a little more on that. On the one hand, for most violations, you would have to get more than 10 strikes in a 90-day period to be at risk for a full disabling of your account or outright termination. On the other hand, however, Facebook is also not above disabling or terminating your account after one violation (or however many they decide to tolerate) if that violation was extremely severe. The big takeaway here is that the majority of users will get a lot of second chances when they violate Facebook’s Community Standards. That is, unless they post or behave in a way that is so offensive (or illegal) that Facebook has no choice but to delete their account for their community’s safety. Still, having a lot of strikes against you isn’t something to aspire to or celebrate. The more strikes you accumulate within 90 days, the more Facebook restricts your activity. With 10 or more strikes against you, you’ll be restricted from posting content for 30 days, which could be a death knell for your Page. To make things fairer, Facebook doesn’t count strikes on offending content that was posted more than 90 days ago. So, if you do make a small mistake or two, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. (This policy doesn’t apply to severe offenses, which Facebook counts against you for more than four years.) Ultimately, your goal in 2025 should be to not violate Facebook’s community guidelines. They exist to make Facebook a safer place for everyone, including business owners, marketers, and entrepreneurs, and you’re better off following them as closely as possible. This will enable you to keep growing your Page, uninterrupted by scandal. One way that you can grow and thrive on Facebook without strictly violating the Community Standards is by buying 100% real Facebook followers, likes, Page likes, and video views. So many creators make the mistake of buying fake engagement, which is how they attract attention and receive strikes. Viralyft is a far superior alternative to the latter strategy. First of all, we provide real Facebook engagement that is delivered over a period of time to appear more natural. Second, we make sure that all the accounts we send to interact with your posts and your Page are operated by human beings, not bots. These qualities can help you boost your engagement rate and follower count without getting a strike. Check out all our offerings for Facebook engagement today! In general, severe violations of Facebook’s Community Standards can result in your account being terminated after just one strike. Less severe violations can stack up to 10 and beyond.
5. Intellectual Property
What Are You Allowed To Post and Do on Facebook?
Which Facebook Community Standards Violations Can Get Your Posts Taken Down?
How Many Facebook Community Standards Strikes Before Your Account is Terminated?
Use Viralyft To Grow Without Violating Facebook Community Standards
Frequently Asked Questions
How Many Strikes Until Facebook Deletes Your Account?
