Suicide, self-injury and eating disorders

Policy rationale

We care deeply about the safety of the people who use our apps. We regularly consult with experts in suicide, self-injury and eating disorders to help inform our policies and enforcement, and we work with organisations around the world to provide assistance to people in distress.

While we do not allow people to intentionally or unintentionally celebrate or promote suicide, self-injury or eating disorders, we do allow people to discuss these topics because we want our services to be a space where people can share their experiences, raise awareness about these issues and seek support from one another.

We remove any content that encourages suicide, self-injury or eating disorders, including fictional content such as memes or illustrations and any self-injury content which is graphic, regardless of context. We also remove content that mocks victims or survivors of suicide, self-injury or eating disorders, as well as real-time depictions of suicide or self-injury. Content about recovery from suicide, self-injury or eating disorders that is allowed, but may contain imagery that could be upsetting (such as a healed scar) is placed behind a sensitivity screen.

When people post or search for suicide-, self-injury- or eating disorders-related content, we will direct them to local organisations that can provide support and if our Community Operations team is concerned about immediate harm, we will contact local emergency services to get them help.

With respect to live content, experts have told us that if someone is saying that intend to attempt suicide on a live stream, we should leave the content up for as long as possible because the longer that someone is talking to a camera, the more opportunity there is for a friend or family member to call emergency services. However, to minimise the risk of others being negatively affected by viewing this content, we will stop the live stream at the point at which the threat turns into an attempt. As mentioned above, in any case, we will contact the emergency services if we identify that someone is at immediate risk of harming themselves.

Do not post:

Content that promotes, encourages, coordinates or provides instructions for suicide, self-injury or eating disorders.

• Content that depicts graphic suicide, self-injury and eating disorder imagery

• Content depicting a person who engaged in a suicide attempt or death by suicide

• Content that focuses on depiction of ribs, collar bones, thigh gaps, hips, concave stomach or protruding spine or scapula when shared together with terms associated with eating disorders

• Content that contains instructions for drastic and unhealthy weight loss when shared together with terms associated with eating disorders

• Content that mocks victims or survivors of suicide, self-injury or eating disorders who are either publicly known or implied to have experienced suicide or self-injury

• Imagery depicting body modification (e.g. tattoo, piercing, scarification, self-flagellation) when shared in a suicide or self-injury context

For the following content, we include a warning screen so that people are aware the content may be sensitive. We also limit the ability to view the content to adults aged 18 and older:

• Photos or videos depicting a person who engaged in euthanasia/assisted suicide in a medical setting.

For the following content, we include a label so that people are aware that the content may be sensitive:

• Content that depicts older instances of self-harm such as healed cuts or other non-graphic self-injury imagery in a self-injury, suicide or recovery context.

• Content that depicts ribs, collar bones, thigh gaps, hips, concave stomach or protruding spine or scapula in a recovery context.

We provide resources to people who post written or verbal admissions of engagement in self-injury, including:

• Suicide.

• Euthanasia/assisted suicide.

• Self-harm.

• Eating disorders.

• Vague, potentially suicidal statements or references (including memes or stock imagery about sad mood or depression) in a suicide or self-injury context.

For the following Community Standards, we require additional information and/or context to enforce:

• We may remove suicide notes when we have confirmation of a suicide or suicide attempt. We try to identify suicide notes using several factors, including, but not limited to:

• Family or legal representative requests,

• Reports from media, law enforcement or other third-party sources (e.g. government agencies, NGOs) or the Suicidal content contact form.