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Maria Briceño
By Maria Briceño April 15, 2024

Facebook post falsely claims Mark Zuckerberg has banned posting the Lord’s Prayer on Meta

If Your Time is short

  • A Meta spokesperson told PolitiFact that posting the Lord's Prayer does not violate Meta policies.

  • We found no information in Meta’s community standards and policies that would prohibit posting the Lord's Prayer or religious content.

  • Learn more about PolitiFact’s fact-checking process and rating system.

Meta leader Mark Zuckerberg didn’t prohibit posting the Lord's Prayer on Meta platforms, as a Facebook post claims. 

"After hearing Mark Zuckerberg say that posting the Lord's Prayer violates their policies, I ask all Christian to follow my lead and post the Lord's Prayer," said a March 30 Facebook post. 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The post, which has been shared 22,000 times, encourages other users to "follow my lead" of posting the prayer. 

However, Zuckerberg, who is Meta’s founder, chairman and chief executive officer, never said that posting the prayer violates Meta’s policies. 

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A Meta spokesperson told PolitiFact the claim is false. 

The spokesperson said Zuckerberg made no such a statement and that the "language of this prayer does not violate our policies."

The claim was previously debunked in  2022 and 2020

Featured Fact-check

PolitiFact reviewed Meta’s community standards and policies and found no information that would prohibit posting the Lord's Prayer or religious content. We also searched the keywords "Lord’s Prayer" on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads and found more than 20 accounts that recently posted the prayer or used the phrase as a user handle. 

Religion is mentioned in Meta’s policies only once —  under hate speech guidelines. 

Meta defines hate speech as "direct attacks against people— rather than concepts or institutions," based on characteristics including race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste and sexual orientation. 

We rate the claim that Zuckerberg said "posting the Lord's Prayer violated" Meta’s policies False.

Our Sources

Facebook post, March 30, 2024

Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, accessed April 15, 2024

WUSA9, Verify. No Facebook did not ban users from posting the Lord's Prayer, Oct 6, 2020

Reuters, Facebook has not banned ‘the Lord's Prayer’, Jan. 17, 2022

Meta, Hate Speech, accessed April 15, 2024

Meta, Facebook Community Standards, accessed April 15, 2024

Meta, Policies, accessed April 15, 2024

Facebook search, the Lord's Prayer, April 15, 2024

Threads search, the Lord's Prayer, April 15, 2024

Instagram search, the Lord's Prayer, April 15, 2024

Email interview with Facebook spokesperson, Daniel Roberts, April 15, 2024

 

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Facebook post falsely claims Mark Zuckerberg has banned posting the Lord’s Prayer on Meta

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