When we find content (example: post, comment, story) that goes against our Community Guidelines, we remove it from Instagram. If content doesn’t go against Community Guidelines but may be inappropriate, disrespectful, or offensive, we may limit it from Explore, rather than removing it from Instagram. Our Community Guidelines define what is and isn't allowed on Instagram, and they apply all over the world. They're designed to encourage expression and create a safe environment on Instagram.

To find, review, and take action on content that may go against Community Guidelines, we use technology and human reviewers. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is central to our content review process. AI can detect and remove content that goes against our Community Guidelines before anyone reports it. Other times, our technology sends content to human review teams to take a closer look and make a decision on it. These thousands of reviewers around the world focus on content that is most harmful to Instagram users.

AI teams start by building machine learning models that can do things like recognize what’s in a photo or analyze the text of a post. For example, AI models may be built to learn whether a piece of content contains nudity or graphic content. Those models may then determine whether to take action on the content, such as removing it from the platform or reducing its distribution.

Sometimes, a piece of content requires further review and our AI sends it to a human review team to take a closer look. In these cases, review teams make the final decision, and our technology learns and improves from each decision. Over time—after learning from thousands of human decisions—the technology gets better.

Our policies may change over time to keep up with changes in social norms, language and our products and services. As a result, our content review process constantly evolves.

If we’ve taken down a piece of your content that you don’t believe goes against our Community Guidelines, you can request a review.

Visit our Transparency Center to learn more about how we use technology and review teams to detect, review, and take action on content.