Across our apps, we make recommendations to help you discover new communities and content we think you’re likely to be interested in. We suggest Pages, Groups, Events and more based on content you’ve expressed interest in and actions you take on our apps. We personalize these recommendations to make sure they’re relevant and valuable to you. 

Recommendations can help you discover things you love, but since recommended content doesn’t come from accounts you choose to follow, it’s important that we have certain standards for what we recommend. This helps ensure we don’t recommend potentially sensitive content to those who don’t explicitly indicate that they wish to see it. To be clear, this content is still allowed on our platforms – we just won’t show it in places where we recommend content.

To determine what content is eligible to appear in recommendations, we have Recommendation Guidelines. Today, we’re making these guidelines public in the Help Center to help people better understand the kinds of content we recommend, and provide context on why some types of content aren’t included in recommendations, and therefore may not be distributed as widely.

In developing these guidelines, we consulted 50 leading experts specializing in recommender systems, expression, safety and digital rights. These consultations help ensure we provide a safe and positive experience when we recommend things on our apps.

You can see the Recommendations Guidelines in the Facebook Help Center and Instagram Help Center.