Content Moderation & Reporting Compliance

Building a metaverse that users enjoy and feel safe using is a shared responsibility between platforms like Meta and developers like you. Achieving that goal requires governing how users in a given community behave and treat one another. That means you need a sound content moderation strategy - starting with a strong set of community guidelines.

Meta has created a set of standards rooted in values respecting everyone's voice, safety, dignity, and privacy. Those standards are communicated in the user-facing Code of Conduct for Virtual Experiences (CCVE). At a minimum, you are expected to uphold those standards as you manage user behavior and interactions within your experience.

To effectively uphold those standards, you need a mechanism for your users to alert you to unacceptable behavior within your community. You are required under Meta's Virtual Reality Checks (VRCs) to provide users with a way to report inappropriate behavior directly from the Meta Horizon button. Meta has provided two convenient options for you to meet this requirement.

Start by answering this question:

No

Yes

No

Yes

Under Meta's VRCs...

you are required to provide an in-app reporting flow that users can access directly from the Meta Horizon button.

Under Meta's VRCs...

you are required to make reporting available to users via the Meta Horizon button.

Once you meet Meta's technical requirements for reporting, you can focus on developing a moderation strategy. Meeting the standards defined in the CCVE is a strong start, but every community is unique. To build a successful content moderation strategy, consider creating your own community rules based on what your unique user base finds distasteful, inappropriate, or harmful.

Creating your own community rules is not a requirement. But doing so helps you set user expectations for what's acceptable or not, and create a roadmap for you to moderate user behavior.

Step 1:Create your own community rules

1. Use Meta's CCVE as a baseline
2. Reflect on your community's values and ideals as well as behaviors your users find unacceptable
3. Study your users' behavior and interactions across content types
4. Reference the codes of conduct for products you and your community use
5. Provide clear instructions for users to report behaviors deemed unacceptable
6. Include clear examples of good and bad behaviors

Step 2:Make a plan for actioning reports

1. Identify who will receive and review reports
2. Define consequences and enforcement timelines
3. Create a process for investigating, decision making, enforcing, and then communicating to users
4. Provide guidance on how moderators will handle reports

Step 3:Establish a user-centric approach

1. Make the rules easy to understand by writing in clear language and providing them in the primary languages of users engaging with your experience
2. Make the rules easy to find by posting them in a location users visit regularly
3. Listen to your community and make changes over time as needed

Step 4:Learn as you go

1. Experiment with different moderation tools
2. Regularly re-evaluate and refine your approach
3. Share the responsibility for safety with your community
4. Consider incentivizing positive behavior

When you're ready to get started, check out this resource: HOW-TO GUIDE: Moderation Reporting Compliance for a guide to complying with Meta's requirements.

Disclaimer: This resource does not guarantee compliance with Meta policies, nor applicable data privacy laws. Review Meta Horizon's Developer Data Use Policy for a comprehensive overview of Meta's requirements.