^{NOTE: Initially drafted after several true crime accounts – including my own – were mistakenly disabled for ‘glorifying dangerous individuals’ (AKA: Dahmer). My account has since been reinstated, but others have not, so I’m sharing what I learned about Meta’s moderation in case it helps anyone else avoid the same issue.}

From Tumblr to Twitter, social media platforms have become increasingly strict on true crime content over the past few years.

Very recently, Meta’s own algorithm appears to have conducted a fresh sweep for notorious names and, as a result, several research-oriented Facebook and Instagram accounts have been removed for violating its “Dangerous Individuals” policy – including those belonging to professional criminologists, true crime authors, hobbyist researchers and artifact collectors.

Even if used for archival and educational purposes rather than ‘fangirling’ or overt romanticisation, any page that mentions Jeffrey Dahmer¹ in its bio can automatically be flagged, leading to permanent removal of the account and any linked profiles – regardless of their activity level.

In other words: although someone may never post about Dahmer on Facebook, having a Dahmer-dedicated Instagram could trigger an automatic removal of their Facebook account if the Instagram is suspended².

After being informed that an account has been disabled (without any prior warning or strike system), the user is given 180 days to press the ‘appeal’ button and indicate that they want the suspension reviewed by a human moderator. There’s no option to add any kind of explanation, apology or context and, should their review be unsuccessful (which it often is), they are then told that their account will be permanently suspended, with no option to reappeal.³

Though Meta claims to be operating under the guise of public safety, these automated, context-blind bans are a cruel mass destruction of people’s personal histories – when photos, memories, connections and private conversations are wiped out in seconds by an algorithm which can’t distinguish between adoration and academia; the idolatrous and the informative.

One criminology professor specialising in serial murder at a Midwestern university had their account flagged after their bio casually proclaimed, “I know a little bit about Jeffrey Dahmer and other serial killers. Don’t mind talking about them either.” Their use of the ironic pun “killer teacher” to describe their tenure was presumably also misinterpted by the human mod to mean they instructed people on how to kill.

“I had [Dahmer’s] full name in my Instagram bio – my Insta account I never use – and it nuked my entire Facebook account,” they explained. “I lost everything. Four personal pages are gone. The explanation was that my Instagram was ‘not following the rules’, so they deleted my Facebook – including 13k followers on [my forensic psychology book’s] page. It’s been up for fucking years and years… I know these things are arbitrary, but losing the feedback I was getting on [my latest] book, and from people that had been following my work, just cut my heart out. And I can’t even summarise all that’s been lost personally and professionally. It’s horrible. All I could think is, “who’s targeting me?” You cannot even talk to a Facebook person and get answers to questions. It’s so cowardly.”

The emotional distress that comes from suddenly losing such things is widely palpable.

“I couldn’t even get out of bed,” another account⁴ admitted. “I’m genuinely heartbroken. It’s not just losing a silly social media page (despite all the problems Facebook has). There were blueprints of friendships and relationships in my messages, comments and pictures from people no longer in my life, posts I’d made documenting my youth – all gone forever because of something so stupid… It’s barbaric. I could understand more if a page is gushing about how hot he was, being callous to the victims, or if it were actually inciting hate – but I just had the words ‘Jeffrey Dahmer researcher’ in my bio, with a few letters he’d mailed from prison, and apparently that’s enough to erase an entire part of me. That’s what it feels like.”

Although private companies have the right to choose what they host on their platforms – with freedom of speech not guaranteeing freedom from civic consequences – Meta’s official policy and its algorithm aren’t even aligned:

Extracts from Meta’s ‘Dangeous Organisations and Individuals’ policy.
Despite recognising the difference between glorification and neutral or educational use, its enforcement is electronic and incapable of nuance

Moderation rules say “we allow neutral or educational discussion,” but the detection systems that flag content seem to see only keywords and images. Anything that mentions a “designated individual” like Dahmer, or includes his likeness, therefore risks eventually being auto-flagged before a human Meta staffer ever sees it. Then, once a real-life person checks a marked account, it’s down solely to that individuals interpretation of the rules – especially without any additional information allowed from the person trying to appeal their case.

Some accounts are reviewed within hours, others have to wait days (or more), with different members of staff – each with their own level of patience, understanding and objectivity – checking different pages.

“I don’t care if the Dahmer account gets taken down,” admitted a suspended owner, “but knowing I might lose all my Facebook data – without even a chance to save anything – made me feel ill. Being in that limbo as you wait to hear the outcome sucks – and you can’t do anything about it!”

Certain reviewers seem to err on the side of removal, when reinstating something mislabelled as “glorification” may carry more internal risk than banning a few innocent accounts – not realising it’s far more personal when pages holding fragments of people’s real lives are inexplicably drawn into the dragnet.

🚫 Based on Meta policy, these types of posts WOULD violate their rules:

• Posts claiming that Dahmer “did nothing wrong”, expressing glee over his murders, or lamenting that he had not killed more
  
  
• Posts expressing a desire to emulate Dahmer (“I wish I was like Jeffrey Dahmer”) or respecting him for his notoriety (“He’s my favourite serial killer,” “Jeff’s the best!”)
  
  
• Posts promoting Nazism or white supremacy, utilising the disproportionate number of men of colour whom Dahmer killed⁵
  
  
• Posts depicting Dahmer as a holy or regal figure (e.g. Photoshopped with a crown, labelled “King,” or portrayed with halos or saint-like imagery)
  
  
• Posts visually framing Dahmer as attractive, tragic, or misunderstood (edits with angel wings, love hearts, captions like “He’s so hot!”, AI images of Dahmer in states of undress)
  
  
• Posts aligning too closely or emotionally with Dahmer (“Sometimes I think I understand Dahmer more than anyone,” “He wouldn’t have done it if he’d known me,” “I’m Dahmer’s biggest fan”) rather than expressing clinical empathy of the kind noted by many professionals who worked the case⁶
  
  
• Posts professing to be “in love” with Dahmer or expressing a desire for a sexual relationship with him
  
  
• Posts showcasing Dahmer ‘merch’ like t-shirts, key rings, phone cases or pop sockets with his face on, or ‘murderabilia’ with exuberant captions and lack of archival framing (“So cool that I own dirt from the home where Dahmer killed someone!”)
  
  
• Posts depicting graphic, uncensored crime scene photos (like the Polaroids taken of his victims)
  
  
• Sensational or ‘shock humour’ posts which can be seen as inflamatory (“Choke me like Bundy, eat me like Dahmer”)
  
  
• Accounts ‘role-playing’ as Dahmer

✅ Conversely, most purged accounts belonged to users who had previously posted or uploaded:

• Archival and historical content / artifacts. Including a focus on evidence, court proceedings, and documentation (“Official statement from Dr. Dietz”, “Prescription for Halcion signed by Dr. Hong and prescribed to Dahmer in June ’91”, “Items found in Dahmer’s apartment”, etc.)
  
  
• Clear disclaimers that they were “not romanticising or condoning” and that these accounts were “research” oriented
  
  
• Posts acknowledging the victims, families, and broader consequences (like the impact on Dahmer’s neighbours and the complexities of the insanity defence)
  
  
• Images of Dahmer captioned with quotes from newspapers, authors, people who worked on the case, etc.
  
  
• Quotes from Dahmer in which he talks about his crimes with no air of delight, vigilantism or sadism (which weren’t part of Dahmer’s psychopathology)

Or – in the case of those who barely used their Instagram – nothing at all.

Meta’s policy further acknowledges that it:

“May also remove unclear or contextless references if the user’s intent was not clearly indicated.

This includes unclear humour.”

Despite humour – and how it may or may not land – being entirely subjective.

Meta goes onto say that, “in certain cases, we will allow content that may otherwise violate the Community Standards when it is determined that the content is satirical.” However, such content is only permitted if the “violating elements” (ie: ‘risque’ Photoshops of Dahmer, memes, etc.) are being satirised or attributed to Dahmer in a way that mocks or criticises him.

“I acknowledge that, without more carefully considered captions, such images can sometimes be taken out of context or appear insensitive,” said a researcher, who suspected their recent ban was exasperated by a self-deprecating joke in which an image of a grumpy-looking Dahmer was captioned “#mood.”

“Sometimes lines can be blurred and intent could be questioned when overfamiliarity with the material means not always framing it as conservatively as it should be, particularly on private socials,” they added.

Although whether the penalty for low-hanging fruit posted to a handful of followers, and partly making fun of the perpetrator, should ever be the destruction of almost a decades worth of digital souvenirs is debatable.

Critics of true crime media often accuse podcasts, documentaries, blogs – and everything Ryan Murphy has touched over the past five years – of glorifying perpetrators and treating victims as an afterthought. Sometimes insisting that no further coverage of these cases need exist at all.

Undeniably, some narratives do distastefully blur the line between history and entertainment, but others actively work to give victims and their families a voice they might not otherwise have – like this YouTube interview with Rita Isbell, or the attentive archival work done by Bundy-blogger Killer in the Archives.

While true crime certainly attracts some individuals with unsavoury fascinations, edgy idolatry and malicious intent, it also draws those with a genuine interest in psychology and sexual deviance, the criminal justice system, historical research, forensic science, armchair sleuthing, the wider cultural questions these cases raise, those who wish to understand violent offenders as a way of protecting themselves from them, and more. Human curiosity towards the morbid and the macabre long pre-dates Dahmer, and has ensured true crime remains one of the most popular media genres among millions of law-abiding citizens worldwide.

Most people operating on a level beyond knee-jerk reaction and performative outrage understand that providing objective facts (and even preserving certain relics of dark history) is not the same as hailing convicted criminals, even if Meta bots don’t.

“It’s fucking embarassing,” said another researcher – who hadn’t updated their Dahmer-Insta in over a year. “Having to tell people I was banned from Facebook because it thought I was glorifying a dead serial killer at my age, when that obviously wasn’t the case.”

Though their account was one of the few reinstated, many ‘nuked’ Dahmerologists aren’t so lucky.⁷

Researcher Risk Reduction

As it’s a crapshoot whether a Dahmer account might end up permanently suspended (and as there’s no guarantee evading one suspension won’t mean getting hit with another later down the line) to reduce the risk of losing access to ones socials, researchers should consider some of the following:

• Avoid any mention of Jeffrey Dahmer in a pages username, handle or bio – unless the bio clearly states that content is shared for educational and research purposes only, with no intent to glorify, sensationalise, or romanticise Dahmer or his crimes
  
  
• Keep accounts unlinked. Use separate emails, separate login credentials, and unlink Instagram from Facebook via the Meta accounts center, so that one suspension doesn’t automatically remove other pages
  
  
• Where possible, use neutral visuals to illustrate posts – such as symbolic artwork, Milwaukee landmarks, documents, court materials, extracts from letters, etc. – and represent the subject without relying on his likeness
  
  
• Keep true crime accounts private (at least intermittently), approving followers individually
  
  
• Avoid excessive use of the #jeffreydahmer, #dahmer and #milwaukeecannibal hashtags
  
  
• Utilise tags showing academic intent (#research, #historicalarchive, #casestudy, #courtrecords, etc.)
  
  
• In captions, consider partially obscuring D*hm*r’s name (using asterisks or spacing) to reduce the risk of automated flagging
  
  
• Avoid using Dahmer’s full face (even stylised or artistic versions) as a profile picture
  
  
• Alternate posts about Dahmer with content focusing on other figures connected to the case (such as psychiatrists, attorneys, investigators, or cultural commentators) to demonstrate historical context and break any pecieved pattern of perpetrator worship
  
  
• Use neutral wording such as “1990s criminal case artifacts” or “dark history relics” rather than “my Dahmer collection” or “murderabilia”
  
  
• Routinely download Instagram and Facebook data and screenshot important messages or comments
  
  
• Consider hosting the bulk of research on a personal site or blog, using Meta platforms only to announce updates
  
  
• If no longer active in the community, delete any dormant Dahmer-related accounts, as algorithms can periodically flag or remove inactive pages (sometimes even years later) and put linked profiles at risk

These notes aren’t meant as a slippery guide on how to gratutiously plaster Dahmer all over social media, but as cautionary advice for researchers and archivists who already study the case and wish to avoid accidental breaches of platform policy.

The recent bans have shown how easily educational or archival work can be mistaken for glorification, and underscore how automated enforcement is not merely a technical matter, but one with genuine human and emotional repercussions.

Although Jeffrey Dahmer is a controversial figure, he remains a significant part of modern criminology – and studying his case is part of learning how such crimes occurred, how they were investigated, and how the victims are remembered, so that history is understood rather than wiped out.

As AI continues to become more sophisticated, hopefully Meta develops to detect wider context, retrospectively reconsider its affront on researchers, and ensure that those who seek to respectfully explore the underbelly of society are not digitally erased either.

_{UPDATE: On Oct 30th, one of the information accounts that had been recently suspended – then reinstated a few days later – was removed for good. This confirms that accounts deemed acceptable by one human mod may be scorched again by the algorithm and when reviewed by a different member of Meta’s team.}

^{The account owner also lost access to personal pages unrelated to their Dahmer research.}

Sources:

• Meta
• 213Dahmer on Instagram
• Conversations with suspended account owners

Footnotes:

1. ‘Dahmer’ by itself seems to be relatively safe for now ↩︎
2. Meta owns both Facebook and Instagram ↩︎
3. As contacting a direct representative for Facebook or Instagram is notoriously difficult, most users resign themselves to the suspension and data loss ↩︎
4. Names witheld for privacy ↩︎
5. Although Dahmer’s own motive has long-been established as not having had anything to do with race ↩︎
6. Examples include: “Is Dahmer sane or insane? After two days interviewing him, I felt only empathy for the tormented and twisted person who sat before me.” (Former FBI agent Robert Ressler). “I actually started to feel sorry for the prick… I mean, he was a pathetic guy, right?” (Det. Pat Kennedy). “Strange to say, he’s not such a bad person.” (psychiatrist Dr. George Palermo) ↩︎
7. As well as Dahmer accounts, other true crime artifact collectors and pages documenting the life and crimes of Ted Bundy, et al. have also been suspended from the platform more recently and over the years ↩︎