Instagram Community Guidelines Explained in Plain English

Where Instagram's rules actually live

For years Instagram had its own short Community Guidelines page. Today, that link leads to Meta's Community Standards on the Transparency Center, which say they outline what is and isn't allowed on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads. Meta notes that the US English version is the most up-to-date and should be treated as the primary document.

On top of that, Instagram has Recommendation Guidelines that apply only to content it suggests to people who don't follow you. Understanding the difference between these two rulebooks explains most "why did my reach drop?" questions.

The Community Standards in plain English

Meta says it limits expression to protect four values: authenticity, safety, privacy and dignity. The standards also state they apply to all types of content, including AI-generated content. The policies are grouped into sections. Here's what each means for an everyday Instagram user.

Coordinating harm and promoting crime

No praise, support or representation of dangerous organizations and individuals. No coordinating crimes or selling things Meta prohibits, and restrictions on regulated goods such as drugs, firearms, alcohol and tobacco. Businesses selling legal regulated products can post, but with limits.

Safety

• Violence and incitement: no threats or calls to violence, including "joking" threats against real people.
• Bullying and harassment: no targeting private individuals with degrading content, unwanted sexualized comments or coordinated pile-ons. Public figures get somewhat less protection for criticism, but not for threats.
• Suicide, self-injury and eating disorders: content that encourages or promotes these is removed. People can share their own experiences and recovery, though some of this content is age-restricted or not recommended.
• Child safety and human exploitation: zero tolerance, with the most severe enforcement.

Objectionable content

• Adult nudity and sexual activity: generally not allowed, with exceptions such as breastfeeding, health contexts and some art.
• Sexual solicitation and sexually explicit language: not allowed.
• Hateful conduct: no attacks on people based on protected characteristics like race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or serious disease.
• Violent and graphic content: some is allowed behind a warning screen or only for adults; the most graphic content is removed.

Integrity and authenticity

• Account integrity and authentic identity: no impersonation, and no fake accounts made to mislead.
• Inauthentic behavior: no artificially boosting likes, follows or comments, including through apps. This is why Instagram removes engagement from fake accounts; see our guide to checking for fake followers.
• Spam: no deceptive links, mass-posting or engagement schemes.
• Cybersecurity: no phishing or attempts to take over other people's accounts.
• Misinformation: Meta removes misinformation that could contribute to imminent physical harm or interfere with voting.

Privacy and intellectual property

• Privacy violations: no sharing other people's private information, such as home addresses or identity documents. Sharing intimate images without consent is covered separately under the adult sexual exploitation policy and is removed.
• Intellectual property: no posting content that infringes someone else's copyright or trademark. Rights holders can report it.

The full standards include detailed examples and exceptions for each section, and it's worth reading the specific policy if you work in a sensitive area like health, news or art.

Recommendation Guidelines: allowed, but not suggested

Instagram's Help Center says its Recommendation Guidelines are designed to hold a higher standard than the Community Standards because recommended content comes from accounts people didn't choose to follow. Instagram developed them with input from 50 experts in recommender systems, expression, safety and digital rights.

Content that may not be recommended includes:

• Sensitive topics: posts discussing self-harm, suicide or eating disorders (outside recovery contexts), content that may depict violence, sexually suggestive content, and content promoting regulated products, weight loss products or cosmetic procedures.
• Low-quality content: unoriginal content repurposed with only minor edits, captions unrelated to the content, and coordinated comment networks meant to inflate engagement.
• False or misleading content: posts rated false by independent fact-checkers, in countries where Meta uses them.

Instagram also avoids recommending accounts that recently broke the Community Guidelines, repeatedly use misleading tactics like buying likes, have been banned from running ads, or repeatedly post photorealistic AI-generated people without the AI-generated label. Teens get additional age-appropriate limits.

This is what's usually behind so-called shadowbans. Instagram rejects the term, but a post can be fully visible to your followers while being ineligible for Explore, Reels recommendations or search suggestions. Our explainer on how Instagram ranking works shows where recommendations fit in.

How strikes work

According to Meta's Transparency Center:

• Removal comes first. If content breaks the Community Standards, Meta removes it and may apply a strike to your Instagram account.
• Not every removal is a strike. Whether a strike is applied depends on severity, context and when the content was posted.
• Old content mostly doesn't count. Meta won't count strikes on violating content posted more than 90 days ago for most violations, or more than four years ago for more severe violations.
• Batches can count once. If several pieces of content are removed at once without separate notifications, they may count as a single strike.
• Strikes expire. All strikes on Facebook or Instagram expire after one year.
• The worst violations skip the ladder. Something as severe as posting child sexual exploitation content can get an Instagram account disabled after one occurrence.

Meta publishes a detailed penalty ladder (warning, then feature limits, then 1-day to 30-day restrictions), but it notes those specific restrictions apply to Facebook accounts. On Instagram, Meta says it counts strikes and Instagram's own explainer describes the consequence more generally: repeated violations can mean losing access to features such as Instagram Live, and eventually account suspension.

Account Status: see what's affecting your account

Account Status is the single place to check where you stand.

1. Go to your profile and tap Menu (three lines).
2. Below More info and support, tap Account Status.

From there you can:

• View Removed content that went against the Community Standards and may lead to your account being taken down.
• See Features you can't use and what you can do about it.
• Request a review if you think a removal was a mistake.
• On professional accounts, check whether your content is affected by Recommendation Guidelines.

Instagram notes that in most cases you'll get a warning before losing access to your account for repeated violations.

How to appeal a decision

1. Request a review in the app. Open the notification about the removal, or go to Account Status and select the item. If Meta finds your content did follow the rules, it restores the content and removes the strike and any related restriction.
2. Take it to the Oversight Board if eligible. After you've exhausted Meta's appeals and received a final decision, some cases get an Oversight Board reference number in your Support requests on Instagram. You enter it at oversightboard.com. The board chooses a limited number of cases, so there's no guarantee yours will be heard.

How the rules affect hashtags

Instagram's Help Center says a hashtag may become unsearchable if the text of the hashtag, or the content associated with it, consistently doesn't follow the Terms of Use or Community Standards. Instagram reviews these hashtags periodically and may make them searchable again if the content changes. You can report inappropriate hashtag pages.

Some practical points:

• An innocent-sounding tag can be restricted because of what other people posted under it.
• Using a restricted tag doesn't earn a strike on its own, but it wastes one of your 5 hashtag slots.
• Broad tags like #trending and #explorepage don't break rules, but they rarely help discovery; specific tags describe your post better.

You can check tags before posting with our banned Instagram hashtags list and checker, or build a clean set of 5 with the free generator on our homepage.

Reporting content that breaks the rules

If you see something that violates the standards, tap Options (three dots) on the post, comment, story, message or profile, then Report. Reports are anonymous except for intellectual property reports. For harassment you're dealing with personally, pair reporting with blocking or restricting; our guide to blocking someone on Instagram explains which to choose. If an account is pretending to be you, see the impersonation section in our guide to private profiles and viewer scams.