وصف حالة
These two cases concern content decisions made by Meta, on Facebook and Instagram, which the Oversight Board intends to address together.
In the first case, a Facebook user in the United States posted a video of a woman confronting a transgender woman for using the women’s bathroom. The post refers to the person being confronted as a man and asks why it is permitted for them to use a women’s bathroom.
In the second case, an Instagram account posted a video of a transgender girl winning a female sports competition in the United States, with some spectators vocally disapproving of the result. The post refers to the athlete as a boy, questioning whether they are female.
Both posts were shared in 2024 and received thousands of views and reactions. They were reported for Hate Speech and Bullying and Harassment multiple times, but Meta left both posts up on Facebook and Instagram, respectively. After appealing to Meta against the company’s decisions, two of the users who reported the content then appealed to the Oversight Board.
Following the Board’s selection of these cases, Meta considered both posts under its Hate Speech and Bullying and Harassment policies and concluded that neither violated its Community Standards. Both posts remained up. Meta’s Hate Speech Community Standard prohibits direct attacks targeting a person or group of people on the basis of protected characteristics, including sex, gender identity and sexual orientation, with “exclusion or segregation in the form of calls for action, statements of intent, aspirational or conditional statements, or statements advocating or supporting [exclusion].” The Hate Speech policy does not include misgendering as a form of prohibited “attack.” Misgendering means referring to a person using a word, especially a pronoun or the way in which they are addressed, that does not reflect their gender identity. Meta informed the Board that neither post violated its Hate Speech policy, adding that even if the post in the first case could constitute a call for exclusion, it would still be kept up under the newsworthiness allowance, given “transgender people’s access to bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity is the subject of considerable political debate in the United States.”
Meta’s Bullying and Harassment Community Standard prohibits “cognizable attacks and calls for exclusion” targeted at a private minor, private adult (if reported by the targeted person) or an involuntary public figure who is a minor (including statements advocating or supporting exclusion of a person). The public-facing language of the Bullying and Harassment policy does not consider misgendering a person to be a cognizable attack or call for exclusion. Meta informed the Board that the content in the first case did not violate the Bullying and Harassment policy as there was “no explicit call for exclusion present in the post and because the post was not self-reported by the person depicted in the video.” The company stated that although the second post targeted a minor who Meta considers to be an involuntary public figure, it did not contain a “cognizable attack or call for exclusion” so did not violate this Community Standard. Meta explained that the company allows “more discussion and debate around public figures in part because – as here – these conversations are often part of social and political debates and the subject of news reporting.”
In their statement to the Board, the user who appealed the post in the first case explained that Meta allowed what in their view is a transphobic post to stay on its platform. The user who appealed the post in the second case said that the post attacks and harasses the athlete with language that in their view violates Meta’s Community Standards.
The Board selected these cases to assess whether Meta’s approach to moderating discussions around gender identity respects users’ freedom of expression and the rights of transgender and non-binary people. The cases fall within the Board’s Hate Speech Against Marginalized Groups and Gender strategic priorities.
The Board would appreciate public comments that address:
- The impacts of Meta’s Hate Speech and Bullying and Harassment policies on freedom of expression around gender identity issues, and the rights of transgender people, including minors.
- Technical challenges in enforcing bullying and harassment policies at scale, the effectiveness of self-reporting requirements and their impacts on people targeted by bullying or harassment, and comparisons to alternative enforcement approaches.
- The sociopolitical context in the United States concerning freedom of expression and the rights of transgender people, especially for access to single-sex spaces and participation in sporting events.
As part of its decisions, the Board can issue policy recommendations to Meta. While recommendations are not binding, Meta must respond to them within 60 days. As such, the Board welcomes public comments proposing recommendations that are relevant to these cases.
تعليقات
Meta should NOT allow hate speech around Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity at all. Preventing hate speech around this topic will make it's social network apps way more healthy for EVERYONE. For those who wants to express their pre-judice Meta's answer must be clear: "We do not tolerate hate speech on our platform!".
As a pediatrician, I feel it is important to balance the rights of self-identified transgender people against the rights of women and girls to have protected spaces. Indeed, the rights of women and girls seem to be under threat in many parts of the world right now. I do not think self-identified transgender people should be designated as a protected class whose rights supersede the rights of girls to feel safe in designated same-sex spaces.
Content should remain posted. I should be able to be questioned if I say I am one thing and I am really not. I was born a man. I am a woman today. Tomorrow I am a cat. You can be whatever you want and call yourself whatever you want, but you should not be able to say that I cannot comment on that, or say it is ridiculous, or suggest that you need mental help. Our society is free and should be uncensored.
Knowing the death toll and levels of violence against the Trans community in particular and the LGBTQ+ in general, FB allowing hate speech against this minority group would be a major oversight. We've seen violence go from online to IRL multiple times and permitting this violence to continue would be no different.
Women and other concerned adults have a right to express concerns about access to women only spaces and sports. Self ID has allowed male born adults who are fully intact to enter female only spaces and sports. This puts women at greater risk (statistics show that transgender women retain the same offending rate as males) and reduces fairness in women's sport. Banning discussion of these issues is censorship of matters of public interest. It may be hurtful to people's feelings to raise them publicly - but it is also harmful to women not to do so. We have seen the issue around participatory fairness in the Boxing category at this years Olympic Games in Paris. While that is an issue of DSDs and doesn't relate to transgenderism, it amounts to the same issue. Whether females have a right to protected categories and spaces. While the debate should remain civil it would, in my opinion, be facistic and draconian to prevent any discussion of such matters on public forums.
The lives of trans people are under constant attack thanks to our "newsworthy-ness." While people are entitled to their own opinions and speech, that speech should be checked when it becomes discriminatory. There should be limits on speech in open public forums. When you allow posting to become a weapon, to rally people to dehumanize and discriminate against another human being, you are rapidly allowing discrimination and hatred to spread and do harm to others in their daily lives. In order to keep a respectful and peaceful society, we must not tolerate intolerance. When you allow groups of people to post hatred of minorities, your platform shows minitories that they are not welcome. When you have a platform full of weirdos who only post about conspiracy theories and hatred for minorities, you no longer have public square, but instead you have a Klan Rally.
The dignity and privacy of trans people should not be a matter of debate. Newsworthiness is a very thin veneer for meta to hide behind — it is clear this decision is an excuse for them to avoid having to take a public stance that conservatives will use to paint them as liberals. This is not an issue of left vs right, it is an issue of right vs wrong. If meta wants to be a platform for open discourse it has to be responsible for the wellbeing of its users. The bare minimum is protecting users from targeted harassment and bigotry. Free speech has never meant speech free from consequences.
Hate speech should have no safe harbor on Facebook — no matter how loud bad-faith fear mongering is in the “news”
Everyone in America has the right to their own gender identity. However, in every walk of life rules and correct behavior must be established that not only stand up to the rule of law but also do not discriminate in spite of laws not being upheld selectively as in the case of systemic racism, prejudice or other perceived threats, in order to live in a civilized society. Everyone should be free to practice their own religion, ethics and morals, be whomever they are, love whomever they want and have full sanctity and authority over their own bodies and not anyone else's without the fear or threat that others might impose on them. That is the key point. Throughout history people have been burned at the stake or killed in gas chambers and ovens for not allowing themselves to have others beliefs and religions forced upon them or threatened or bullied. But when it comes to common activities that are shared by all, rules and boundaries are even more important. Two of those are public restrooms and sports activities. It is clear to most people that the rules and regulations set forth to regulate bathrooms and sports competitions are based on anatomy, not someone's perceived identity about themselves. Transgender persons should only be allowed to participate in sports competitions based on their human anatomy, not on their own sexual orientation. Likewise, rest rooms are designed for men & women's anatomy, that's why they are called Men's Room and Women's Room, not for their sexual orientation. And Gay people have been following these rules without incident since the beginning of our Nation. But, under no circumstances should they ever be bullied or threatened. That should be illegal at all times and those laws should be enforced in regard to Equal Rights which should be the law of the land in America, in spite of the fanatics who want to prevent it.