Users will not be allowed to share private residential information if it is publicly available online. Home details that were publicly available was the exception, but the company's own Oversight Board has recommended that this be removed.
In February, the board called on Meta to strengthen its policies in this area. The act of revealing personal information about an individual is known as doxxing.
The exception of publicly available addresses will be removed by the end of the year.
The board notes in the recommendation that removing the exception for public availability of private residential information may limit the availability of this information on social media sites.
The exteriors of private homes will be subject to the policy. If the property in question is the focus of a news story, Meta won't take action against users. It will allow users to share the outside of high ranking officials' homes and allow people to organize protests around these locations.
Users can post their own addresses, but they can't be reshared with others. It is difficult to know if a resident has consented to another person sharing their address.
Meta did not agree with the recommendation to make reporting privacy violations easier for its users. The company says it is testing a way to make the reporting option more visible. In a future quarterly update, Meta will gather and deliver its findings.
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