Terms of Service
Explore the policy
Overview
1. The services we provide
2. How our services are funded
3. Your commitments to Facebook and our community
4. Additional provisions
5. Other terms and policies that may apply to you
Overview
Effective January 1, 2025
Meta builds technologies and services that enable people to connect with each
other, build communities, and grow businesses. These Terms of Service (the
"Terms") govern your access and use of Facebook, Messenger, and the other prod-
ucts, websites, features, apps, services, technologies, and software we offer (the
Meta Products or Products), except where we expressly state that separate terms
(and not these) apply. (For example, your use of Instagram is subject to the
Instagram Terms of Use). These Products are provided to you by Meta Platforms,
Inc. These Terms therefore constitute an agreement between you and Meta
Platforms, Inc. If you do not agree to these Terms, then do not access or use
Facebook or the other products and services covered by these Terms.
These Terms (formerly known as the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities)
make up the entire agreement between you and Meta Platforms, Inc. regarding your
use of our Products. They supersede any prior agreements.
We don’t charge you to use Facebook or the other products and services covered
by these Terms, unless we state otherwise. Instead, businesses and organizations,
and other persons pay us to show you ads for their products and services. By using
our Products, you agree that we can show you ads that we think may be relevant to
you and your interests. We use your personal data to help determine which person-
alized ads to show you.
We don’t sell your personal data to advertisers, and we don’t share information that
directly identifies you (such as your name, email address or other contact informa-
tion) with advertisers unless you give us specific permission. Instead, advertisers
can tell us things like the kind of audience they want to see their ads, and we show
those ads to people who may be interested. We provide advertisers with reports
about the performance of their ads that help them understand how people are inter-
acting with their content. See Section 2 below to learn more about how personalized
advertising under these terms works on the Meta Products.
Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect and use your personal data to determine
some of the ads you see and provide all of the other services described below. You
can also go to your settings pages of the relevant Meta Product at any time to re-
view the privacy choices you have about how we use your data.
What Products do these Terms cover?
1. The services we provide
Our mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world
closer together. To help advance this mission, we provide the Products and services
described below to you:
1.1 Provide a personalized experience for you:
Your experience on Facebook is unlike anyone else's: from the posts, stories,
events, ads, and other content you see in Facebook Feed or our video platform to
the Facebook Pages you follow and other features you might use, such as
Facebook Marketplace, and search. For example, we use data about the connec-
tions you make, the choices and settings you select, and what you share and do on
and off our Products - to personalize your experience.
1.2 Connect you with people and organizations you care
about:
We help you find and connect with people, groups, businesses, organizations, and
others that matter to you across the Meta Products you use. We use data to make
suggestions for you and others - for example, groups to join, events to attend,
Facebook Pages to follow or send a message to, shows to watch, and people you
may want to become friends with. Stronger ties make for better communities, and
we believe our services are most useful when people are connected to people,
groups, and organizations they care about.
1.3 Empower you to express yourself and communicate
about what matters to you:
There are many ways to express yourself on Facebook to communicate with friends,
family, and others about what matters to you - for example, sharing status updates,
photos, videos, and stories across the Meta Products (consistent with your settings),
sending messages or making voice or video calls to a friend or several people, cre-
ating events or groups, or adding content to your profile as well as showing you in-
sights on how others engage with your content. We have also developed, and con-
tinue to explore, new ways for people to use technology, such as augmented reality
and 360 video to create and share more expressive and engaging content on Meta
Products.
1.4 Help you discover content, products, and services that
may interest you:
We show you personalized ads, offers, and other sponsored or commercial content
to help you discover content, products, and services that are offered by the many
businesses and organizations that use Facebook and other Meta Products. Section
2 below explains this in more detail.
1.5 Promote the safety, security, and integrity of our ser‐
vices, combat harmful conduct and keep our community of
users safe:
People will only build community on Meta Products if they feel safe and secure. We
work hard to maintain the security (including the availability, authenticity, integrity,
and confidentiality) of our Products and services. We employ dedicated teams
around the world, work with external service providers, partners and other relevant
entities and develop advanced technical systems to detect potential misuse of our
Products, harmful conduct towards others, and situations where we may be able to
help support or protect our community, including to respond to user reports of poten-
tially violating content. If we learn of content or conduct like this, we may take appro-
priate action based on our assessment that may include - notifying you, offering
help, removing content, removing or restricting access to certain features, disabling
an account, or contacting law enforcement. We share data across Meta Companies
when we detect misuse or harmful conduct by someone using one of our Products
or to help keep Meta Products, users and the community safe. For example, we
share information with Meta Companies that provide financial products and services
to help them promote safety, security and integrity and comply with applicable law.
Meta may access, preserve, use and share any information it collects about you
where it has a good faith belief it is required or permitted by law to do so. For more
information, please review our Privacy Policy.
In some cases, the Oversight Board may review our decisions, subject to its terms
and bylaws. Learn more here.
1.6 Use and develop advanced technologies to provide safe
and functional services for everyone:
We use and develop advanced technologies - such as artificial intelligence, machine
learning systems, and augmented reality - so that people can use our Products
safely regardless of physical ability or geographic location. For example, technology
like this helps people who have visual impairments understand what or who is in
photos or videos shared on Facebook or Instagram. We also build sophisticated net-
work and communication technology to help more people connect to the internet in
areas with limited access. And we develop automated systems to improve our ability
to detect and remove abusive and dangerous activity that may harm our community
and the integrity of our Products.
1.7 Research ways to make our services better:
We engage in research to develop, test, and improve our Products. This includes
analyzing data we have about our users and understanding how people use our
Products, for example by conducting surveys and testing and troubleshooting new
features. Our Privacy Policy explains how we use data to support this research for
the purposes of developing and improving our services.
1.8 Provide consistent and seamless experiences across
the Meta Company Products:
Our Products help you find and connect with people, groups, businesses, organiza-
tions, and others that are important to you. We design our systems so that your ex-
perience is consistent and seamless across the different Meta Company Products
that you use. For example, we use data about the people you engage with on
Facebook to make it easier for you to connect with them on Instagram or
Messenger, and we enable you to communicate with a business you follow on
Facebook through Messenger.
1.9 Ensuring access to our services:
To operate our global services and enable you to connect with people around the
world, we need to transfer, store and distribute content and data to our data centers,
partners, service providers, vendors and systems around the world, including out-
side your country of residence. The use of this global infrastructure is necessary and
essential to provide our services. This infrastructure may be owned, operated, or
controlled by Meta Platforms, Inc., Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, or its affiliates.
2. How our services are funded
Instead of paying to use Facebook and the other products and services we offer, by
using the Meta Products covered by these Terms, you agree that we can show you
personalized ads and other commercial and sponsored content that businesses and
organizations pay us to promote on and off Meta Company Products. We use your
personal data, such as information about your activity and interests, to show you
personalized ads and sponsored content that may be more relevant to you.
Protecting people's privacy is central to how we've designed our personalized ads
system. This means that we can show you relevant and useful ads without telling
advertisers who you are. We don't sell your personal data. We allow advertisers to
tell us things like their business goal, and the kind of audience they want to see their
ads (for example, people between the age of 18-35 who like cycling). We then show
their ad to people who we think might be interested.
We also provide advertisers with reports about the performance of their ads to help
them understand how people are interacting with their content on and off Meta
Products. For example, we provide general demographic and interest information to
advertisers to help them better understand their audience, like the fact that women
between the ages of 25 and 34 who live in Madrid and like software engineering
have seen an ad. We don’t share information that directly identifies you (information
such as your name or email address that by itself can be used to contact you or
identifies who you are) unless you give us specific permission. Learn more about
how Meta ads work here.
We collect and use your personal data in order to provide the services described
above to you. You can learn about how we collect and use your data in our Privacy
Policy. You have controls over the types of ads and advertisers you see, and the
types of information we use to determine which ads we show you. Learn more.
3. Your commitments to Facebook and our
community
We provide these services to you and others to help advance our mission. In ex-
change, we need you to make the following commitments:
3.1 Who can use Facebook
When people stand behind their opinions and actions, our community is safer and
more accountable. For this reason, you must:
Provide for your account the same name that you use in everyday life.
Provide accurate information about yourself.
Create only one account (your own) and use it for personal purposes.
Not share your password, give access to your Facebook account to others, or
transfer your account to anyone else (without our permission).
We try to make Facebook broadly available to everyone, but you cannot use
Facebook if:
You are under 13 years old.
You are a convicted sex offender.
We've previously disabled your account for violations of our Terms, the
Community Standards, or other terms and policies that apply to your use of
Facebook. If we disable your account for a violation of our Terms, the Community
Standards, or other terms and policies, you agree not to create another account
without our permission. Receiving permission to create a new account is provided
at our sole discretion, and does not mean or imply that the disciplinary action was
wrong or without cause.
You are prohibited from receiving our products, services, or software under appli-
cable laws.
3.2 What you can share and do on Meta Products
We want people to use Meta Products to express themselves and to share content
that is important to them, but not at the expense of the safety and well-being of oth-
ers or the integrity of our community. You therefore agree not to engage in the con-
duct described below (or to facilitate or support others in doing so):
1. You may not use our Products to do or share anything:
That violates these Terms, the Community Standards, or other terms and poli-
cies that apply to your use of our Products.
That is unlawful, misleading, discriminatory or fraudulent (or assists someone
else in using our Products in such a way).
That you do not own or have the necessary rights to share.
That infringes or violates someone else's rights, including their intellectual
property rights (such as by infringing another’s copyright or trademark, or dis-
tributing or selling counterfeit or pirated goods), unless an exception or limita-
tion applies under applicable law.
2. You may not upload viruses or malicious code, use the services to send spam, or
do anything else that could disable, overburden, interfere with, or impair the
proper working, integrity, operation, or appearance of our services, systems, or
Products.
3. You may not access or collect data from our Products using automated means
(without our prior permission) or attempt to access data you do not have permis-
sion to access, regardless of whether such automated access or collection is un-
dertaken while logged-in to a Facebook account.
4. You may not proxy, request, or collect Product usernames or passwords, or mis-
appropriate access tokens.
5. Except as provided in the Platform Terms, you may not sell, license, or purchase
any data obtained from us or our services, regardless of whether such data was
obtained while logged-in to a Facebook account.
6. You may not misuse any reporting, flagging, dispute, or appeals channel, such as
by making fraudulent, duplicative, or groundless reports or appeals.
7. You may not do, or attempt to do, anything to circumvent, bypass, or override any
technological measures that Meta uses to control or limit access to our Products
or data.
We can remove or restrict access to content that is in violation of these provisions.
We can also suspend or disable your account for conduct that violates these provi-
sions, as provided in Section 4.2.
If we remove content that you have shared in violation of the Community Standards,
we’ll let you know and explain any options you have to request another review, un-
less you seriously or repeatedly violate these Terms or if doing so may expose us or
others to legal liability; harm our community of users; compromise or interfere with
the integrity or operation of any of our services, systems or Products; where we are
restricted due to technical limitations; or where we are prohibited from doing so for
legal reasons. For information on account suspension or termination, see Section
4.2 below.
We work with independent fact-checkers in many jurisdictions to combat misinfor-
mation. When content has been rated by fact-checkers, we may add a notice to pro-
vide additional context. You can find more information about fact-checking here.
To help support our community, we encourage you to report content or conduct that
you believe violates your rights (including intellectual property rights) or our terms
and policies, if this feature exists in your jurisdiction. We also can remove or restrict
access to content, features, services, or information if we determine that doing so is
reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate misuse of our services or adverse legal or
regulatory impacts to Meta.
3.3 The permissions you give us
We need certain permissions from you to provide our services:
1. Your content: Some content that you share or upload, such as photos or videos,
may be protected by intellectual property laws.
You retain ownership of the intellectual property rights (things like copyright or trade-
marks) in any such content that you create and share on Facebook and other Meta
Company Products you use. Nothing in these Terms takes away the rights you have
to your own content. You are free to share your content with anyone else, wherever
you want.
However, to provide our services we need you to give us some legal permissions
(known as a "license") to use this content. This is solely for the purposes of provid-
ing and improving our Products and services as described in Section 1 above.
2. Permission to use content you create and share: Specifically, when you share,
post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in con-
nection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licens-
able, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy,
publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content
(consistent with your privacy and application settings). This means, for example, that
if you share a photo on Facebook, you give us permission to store, copy, and share
it with others (again, consistent with your settings) such as Meta Products or service
providers that support those products and services. This license will end when your
content is deleted from our systems.
3. Deleting Your Content: You can delete individual content you share, post, and
upload at any time. In addition, all content posted to your personal account will be
deleted if you delete your account. Learn more about how to delete your account.
Account deletion does not automatically delete content that you post as an admin of
a page or content that you create collectively with other users, such as photos in
Shared Albums which may continue to be visible to other album members.
It may take up to 90 days to delete content after we begin the account deletion
process or receive a content deletion request. If you send content to trash, the dele-
tion process will automatically begin in 30 days unless you chose to delete the con-
tent sooner. While the deletion process for such content is being undertaken, the
content is no longer visible to other users. After the content is deleted, it may take us
up to another 90 days to remove it from backups and disaster recovery systems.
Content will not be deleted within 90 days of the account deletion or content deletion
process beginning in the following situations:
where your content has been used by others in accordance with this license and
they have not deleted it (in which case this license will continue to apply until that
content is deleted);
where deletion within 90 days is not possible due to technical limitations of our
systems, in which case, we will complete the deletion as soon as technically fea-
sible; or
where immediate deletion would restrict our ability to:
investigate or identify illegal activity or violations of our terms and policies (for
example, to identify or investigate misuse of our Products or systems);
protect the safety, integrity, and security of our Products, systems, services, our
employees, and users, and to defend ourselves;
comply with legal obligations for the preservation of evidence, including data
Meta Companies providing financial products and services preserve to comply
with any record keeping obligations required by law; or
comply with a request of a judicial or administrative authority, law enforcement
or a government agency;
in which case, the content will be retained for no longer than is necessary for the
purposes for which it has been retained (the exact duration will vary on a case-by-
case basis).
In each of the above cases, this license will continue until the content has been fully
deleted.
4. Permission to use your name, profile picture, and information about your
actions with ads and sponsored or commercial content: You give us permission
to use your name and profile picture and information about actions you have taken
on Facebook next to or in connection with ads, offers, and other sponsored or com-
mercial content that we display across our Products, without any compensation to
you. For example, we may show your friends that you are interested in an adver-
tised event or have liked a Facebook Page created by a brand that has paid us to
display its ads on Facebook. Ads and content like this can be seen only by people
who have your permission to see the actions you've taken on Meta Products. You
can learn more about your ad settings and preferences.
5. Permission to update software you use or download: If you download or use
our software, you give us permission to download and install updates to the soft-
ware where available.
3.4 Limits on using our intellectual property
If you use content covered by intellectual property rights that we have and make
available in our Products (for example, images, designs, videos, or sounds we pro-
vide that you add to content you create or share on Facebook), we retain all rights to
that content (but not yours). You can only use our copyrights or trademarks (or any
similar marks) as expressly permitted by our Brand Usage Guidelines or with our
prior written permission. You must obtain our written permission (or permission un-
der an open source license) to modify, translate, create derivative works of, decom-
pile, or reverse engineer our products or their components, or otherwise attempt to
extract source code from us, unless an exception or limitation applies under applica-
ble law or your conduct relates to the Meta Bug Bounty Program. We reserve all
rights not expressly granted to you.
4. Additional provisions
4.1 Updating our Terms
We work constantly to improve our services and develop new features to make our
Products better for you and our community. As a result, we may need to update
these Terms from time to time to accurately reflect our services and practices, to
promote a safe and secure experience on our Products and services, and/or to com-
ply with applicable law. Unless otherwise required by law, we will notify you before
we make changes to these Terms and give you an opportunity to review them be-
fore they go into effect. Once any updated Terms are in effect, you will be bound by
them if you continue to access or use our Products.
We hope that you will continue using our Products, but if you do not agree to our up-
dated Terms or wish to terminate your agreement to this contract, you can delete
your account at any time and you must also stop accessing, or using Facebook and
the other Meta Products.
4.2 Account suspension or termination
We want Facebook to be a place where people feel welcome and safe to express
themselves and share their thoughts and ideas. If we determine, in our discretion,
that you have clearly, seriously or repeatedly breached our Terms or Policies, includ-
ing in particular the Community Standards, we may suspend or permanently disable
your access to Meta Company Products, and we may permanently disable or delete
your account. We may also disable or delete your account if you repeatedly infringe
other people’s intellectual property rights or where we are required to do so for legal
reasons.
We may disable or delete your account if after registration your account is not con-
firmed, your account is unused and remains inactive for an extended period of time,
or if we detect someone may have used it without your permission and we are un-
able to confirm your ownership of the account. Learn more about how we disable
and delete accounts.
Where we take such action we’ll let you know and explain any options you have to
request a review, unless doing so may expose us or others to legal liability; harm
our community of users; compromise or interfere with the integrity or operation of
any of our services, systems or Products; where we are restricted due to technical
limitations; or where we are prohibited from doing so for legal reasons. You can
learn more about what you can do if your account has been disabled and how to
contact us if you think we have disabled your account by mistake.
If you delete or we disable or delete your account, and you stop accessing, using, or
visiting Facebook and the other Meta Products, or if this contract is otherwise termi-
nated, then these Terms shall terminate as an agreement between you and us, ex-
cept for the following provisions, which will remain in place: (3, 4.2-4.5).
4.3 Limits on liability
We work hard to provide the best Products we can and to specify clear guidelines
for everyone who uses them. Our Products, however, are provided "as is," and we
make no guarantees that they always will be safe, secure, or error-free, or that they
will function without disruptions, delays, or imperfections. To the extent permitted by
law, we also DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. We do not control
or direct what people and others do or say, and we are not responsible for their ac-
tions or conduct (whether online or offline) or any content they share (including of-
fensive, inappropriate, obscene, unlawful, and other objectionable content).
We cannot predict when issues might arise with our Products. Accordingly, our liabil-
ity shall be limited to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, and under no cir-
cumstance will we be liable to you for any lost profits, revenues, information, or
data, or consequential, special, indirect, exemplary, punitive, or incidental damages
arising out of or related to these Terms or the Meta Products (however caused and
on any theory of liability, including negligence), even if we have been advised of the
possibility of such damages. Our aggregate liability arising out of or relating to these
Terms or the Meta Products will not exceed the greater of $100 or the amount you
have paid us in the past twelve months.
4.4 Disputes
We try to provide clear rules so that we can limit or hopefully avoid disputes be-
tween you and us. If a dispute does arise, however, it's useful to know up front
where it can be resolved and what laws will apply.
You and Meta each agree that any claim, cause of action, or dispute between us
that arises out of or relates to these Terms or your access or use of the Meta
Products shall be resolved exclusively in the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of California or a state court located in San Mateo County. You also agree to
submit to the personal jurisdiction of either of these courts for the purpose of litigat-
ing any such claim, and that the laws of the State of California will govern these
Terms and any claim, cause of action, or dispute without regard to conflict of law
provisions. Without prejudice to the foregoing, you agree that, in its sole discretion,
Meta may bring any claim, cause of action, or dispute we have against you in any
competent court in the country in which you reside that has jurisdiction over the
claim.
4.5 Miscellaneous
1. Supplemental Terms: Some of the Products we offer are also governed by sup-
plemental terms. If you use any of those Products, supplemental terms will be
made available and will become part of our agreement with you. For instance, if
you access or use our Products for commercial or business purposes, such as
buying ads, selling products, developing apps, managing a group or Page for
your business, or using our measurement services, you must agree to our
Commercial Terms. If you post or share content containing music, you must com-
ply with our Music Guidelines. If you use Avatars, then the Avatar Terms also ap-
ply. If you use our AI products and features, the Meta AI Terms also apply. To the
extent any supplemental terms conflict with these Terms, the supplemental terms
shall govern to the extent of the conflict.
2. Severability: If any portion of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the un-
enforceable portion will be deemed amended to the minimum extent necessary to
make it enforceable, and if it can’t be made enforceable, then it will be severed
and the remaining portion will remain in full force and effect. If we fail to enforce
any of these Terms, it will not be considered a waiver. Any amendment to or
waiver of these Terms must be made in writing and signed by us.
3. No Transfer: You will not transfer any of your rights or obligations under these
Terms to anyone else without our consent.
4. Legacy Contact: You may designate a person (called a legacy contact) to man-
age your account if it is memorialized. If you enable it in your settings, only your
legacy contact or a person who you have identified in a valid will or similar legal
document expressing clear consent to disclose your content to that person upon
death or incapacity will be able to seek limited disclosure of information from your
account after it is memorialized.
5. No Third-party Beneficiaries: These Terms do not confer any third-party benefi-
ciary rights. All of our rights and obligations under these Terms are freely assigna-
ble by us in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, or by opera-
tion of law or otherwise.
6. User Name Change: We may need to change the username for your account in
certain circumstances (for example, if someone else claims the username and it
appears unrelated to the name you use in everyday life).
7. Feedback: We always appreciate your feedback and other suggestions about our
products and services. But we may use feedback and other suggestions without
any restriction or obligation to compensate you, and we are under no obligation to
keep them confidential.
5. Other terms and policies that may apply to you
Community Standards: These guidelines outline our standards regarding the con-
tent you post to Facebook and your activity on Facebook and other Meta
Products.
Commercial Terms: These terms apply if you also access or use our Products for
any commercial or business purpose, including advertising, operating an app on
our Platform, using our measurement services, managing a group or a Page for a
business, or selling goods or services.
Community Payment Terms: These terms apply to payments made on or through
Meta Products.
Commerce Policies: These guidelines outline the policies that apply when you of-
fer products or services for sale on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Music Guidelines: These guidelines outline the policies that apply if you post or
share content containing music on any Meta Products.
Advertising Policies: These policies apply to partners who advertise across the
Meta Products and specify what types of ad content are allowed by partners who
advertise across the Meta Products.
Self-Serve Ad Terms: These terms apply when you use self-serve advertising in-
terfaces to create, submit, or deliver advertising or other commercial or spon-
sored activity or content.
Facebook Pages, Groups and Events Policy: These guidelines apply if you create
or administer a Facebook Page, group, or event, or if you use Facebook to com-
municate or administer a promotion.
Meta Platform Policy: These terms apply to the use of the set of APIs, SDKs,
tools, plugins, code, technology, content, and services that enables others to de-
velop functionality, retrieve data from MetaProducts, or provide data to us.
Developer Payment Terms: These terms apply to developers of applications that
use Facebook Payments.
Meta Brand Resources: These guidelines outline the policies that apply to use of
Meta trademarks, logos, and screenshots.
Recommendations Guidelines: The Facebook Recommendations Guidelines and
Instagram Recommendations Guidelines outline our standards for recommending
and not recommending content.
Live Policies: These policies apply to all content broadcast to Facebook Live.
Avatar Terms: These terms apply to the use of our Avatars and our Avatar fea-
tures, including purchases and acquisitions of Avatar clothing in the Avatar store.
Meta AI Terms: These terms govern use of our Generative AI products and
features.
