Platforms
Instagram giveaways: the two required disclosures, and the rule everyone breaks
A draw your entrants can recompute themselves
Seed published before the draw, public drand randomness, shareable video. Free for entrants.
Create an accountVerify an existing drawMeta's rules on promotions fit on a single page, and that page is remarkably short. It forbids almost nothing — but the two or three things it does require are exactly the ones organizers forget.
What Meta requires, word for word
Meta's policy on Pages, groups and events asks two things of any promotion:
- a complete release of Facebook from liability by every participant;
- an acknowledgement that the promotion is not sponsored, endorsed or administered by Facebook.
The standard wording on Instagram is always the same: "This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram." It must appear in the official rules, and its absence from the post itself is the leading reason promotions get reported.
Meta adds a sentence worth reading slowly: the platform provides no administrative assistance for these promotions. In practice: if a dispute arises, nobody at Meta will arbitrate, and the organizer alone is responsible for running the promotion lawfully.
The rule almost everyone breaks
This is the interesting one, because it contradicts the most common mechanic of all. Meta states that a promotion must not use personal timelines or friend connections to be administered.
Concretely, that targets two reflexes:
- "share this post to your profile to enter";
- "tag three friends in the comments to enter".
The second deserves a caveat: tagging a friend in the comments is widespread and rarely sanctioned. What Meta unambiguously prohibits is administering the promotion through those channels — using them as the entry-collection mechanism rather than as a simple engagement signal.
The neighbouring rule admits no interpretation at all: you cannot ask someone to tag themselves in content where they do not appear. "Tag yourself in this photo to enter" is prohibited if the person isn't actually in it.
The rules page is not a formality
Meta asks for a complete set of rules: how to enter, who can win, how the winner will be chosen. In practice four elements are rarely enough and six are necessary:
- the duration, with a precise closing date;
- eligibility: age, country, exclusions;
- the prize and its value;
- how the winner is selected;
- grounds for disqualification;
- the liability release above.
A set of rules that doesn't say how the winner is chosen leaves the door open to the one accusation that really hurts: "it was rigged".
Why these rules exist
There is nothing arbitrary about them. A platform hosting millions of promotions has no way to verify a single one; it protects itself by requiring every organizer to publicly own theirs. The liability release is not boilerplate — it is an explicit transfer of risk.
That reasoning matches ours: a condition that isn't visible before entry protects nobody. It merely postpones the dispute to the moment it costs most.
What to do before publishing
- Write the rules before the launch post, not after.
- Give them a stable address — a page, not a story that vanishes in 24 hours.
- Repeat the liability release in the caption, not only in the rules.
- Check that your entry mechanic doesn't rely on profile sharing.
Key takeaways
Meta requires two things: a liability release accepted by every entrant, and a statement that the promotion is not sponsored or administered by Facebook. It prohibits administering a promotion through personal timelines and friend connections, and requiring an entrant to tag themselves in content where they don't appear. Everything else — duration, eligibility, selection method — belongs in the rules, which must exist before the first entry.
FAQ
Is asking people to follow the account and like the post allowed?
Yes. Following and liking are treated as actions without real consideration. The difficulty starts with profile sharing and tagging third parties, which Meta addresses explicitly.
Should the disclosure appear in the caption or in the rules?
In the rules, mandatorily. In the caption, strongly advised: it is the only place most entrants will ever look, and a disclosure nobody reads protects nobody.
What does an organizer risk by ignoring these rules?
Removal of the post, and for repeat cases, account restrictions. The legal risk is separate and often more serious: without enforceable rules, an unhappy entrant challenges the winner selection and there is nothing to answer with.
Do you need a bailiff for an Instagram giveaway?
No — French law hasn't required it for a long time. What it does require is clear rules and a selection consistent with them. A draw whose result anyone can recompute meets that requirement better than a notarized statement.