Meta's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.
Commitment Overview
This mission is closely tied to enabling the exercise of human rights. We seek to champion respect for human rights in every action we take and every product we build.
Our core principles include giving people a voice, inclusivity, privacy, safety, connection, community, and economic opportunity. Putting these principles into practice helps people exercise their human rights.
Human rights are defined by global treaties, including the International Bill of Human Rights. They're alive in the hearts of people everywhere.
We use Meta’s Corporate Human Rights Policy, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the International Bill of Rights to guide our work - and to help Meta teams analyze, prioritize, and act in ways that respect human rights and minimize the misuse of Meta technologies.
Defining Human Rights
Who Has Human Rights
Each of us has human rights, just because we’re human.
Rights are universal - regardless of nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, gender identification or any other protected characteristic. They're defined in many global treaties and legal principles. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) link business to the human rights system.
What Are Human Rights
Human rights include civil, social, cultural, political and economic rights. Aside from basic human rights like access to food, clean water, shelter and health, there also are rights to privacy, freedom of expression, equality and freedom from discrimination. All human rights are interdependent, meaning that one set of rights cannot be fully enjoyed without the other. For example, the right to privacy is a prerequisite to the meaningful exercise of freedom of expression online. Human rights are inalienable, and indivisible.
Government and Corporate Obligations
Governments should not seek to deny or violate human rights. Instead, they’re obligated to respect, protect and enforce fundamental human rights as defined in the International Bill of Rights and human rights laws. Meta is committed to respecting human rights as set out in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Human rights also guide our decisions when developing responsible innovation practices, including when building, testing and deploying products and services enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI).