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
If banning the truth actually passes I'm never going to use Facebook again. It's like you're telling everyone that blackface makes you black, and calling it blackface is hate speech. Both my education in biology and my faith as a Dianic Wiccan prevent me from uttering lies that only serve men. It's honestly fucking insane that this is even being considered. Trans identified males will always be men. Humans cannot change sex. We're not clownfish but Facebook is certainly clowning on everyone.
The spaces where females can openly express objections to trans identified males and the wide related issues pertaining to sex based rights and language, have diminished significantly. If Facebook chooses to ban 'misgendering' then I will delete the app and find another social media space where I can speak truthfully. This matters.
Being able to speak correctly is vital to our ability to speak on the oppression of the female sex. "Misgendering" is correctly identifying someone by their biological sex, which has an impact on their natural ability, but also an impact on their social upbringing and opportunities. It is not "offensive" to state that someone is a male and has male advantages or privileges, it is not offensive to state someone is female and has been socialised as female. Taking our ability to describe the world accurately means being unable to talk about sexism, just as banning the ability to describe someone's race accurately would make us unable to talk meaningfully about racism. I also believe that it could be used in bad faith. There is no way to tell what someone's internal belief around their gender is. They may present as male but identify as a woman, or vice versa. How can this rule be accurately enforced when gender is a personal internal belief? Is the "misgendering" party doing so out of unkindness, genuine lack of knowledge, are they making an accurate statement to discuss a social issue? Who will be making that call? Are you going to be making similar rules around misogynistic comments and content? If not, why not?
Writing to confirm that correctly stating someone's sex is not hate speech.
Sanctioning free speech is not healthy for democracy.
It has come to my attention that you are considering banning “misgendering” language. With all due respect I think I you need to GET REAL. You cannot police the truth in this manner. Just because some people believe they are something they’re clearly not doesn’t mean everyone else has to go along with it. That is INSANE. Stop this nonsense.
It is clear misogyny to say a man can literally become a woman.. the two sexes are separated for good reason @ certain times. 'Feeling' like a woman does not make it a reality. Actual women are being put in harm's way because of the far left push for 'inclusivity'. Keep men out of women's prisons, changing rooms and any other place we have managed to carve out. Signed a lifelong Democrat and lesbian
Female and male are biological conditions, not identities.
Female and male are the two evolved sex classes, a reproductive strategy necessary for the replication of plants and most animals.
Humans are a class of placental mammals whose sex is determined at conception. It is based on the X or Y chromosomal marker of sperm, the SMALL highly motile GAMETE produced and released by MALES who have an anatomical structure organized around the production of small gametes.
FEMALES have an anatomical structure organized around the production and release of LARGE less motile GAMETES, eggs, which are the largest cells in the human body and contains the material to make a human.
After conception, a very small percentage of abnormalities can occur along the human developmental path but sex does not change - one is either female or male; with or without developmental abnormalities.
If male, a medical examiner’s post mortem will indicate the presence of a Y marker. In a 1000 years his skeletal remains will indicate XY. Only a Time Machine going back to the moment of conception could enable the change - an absurdity!
Gender ideology is like Flat Eartherism, it’s not measurable, testable or repeatable. It does not withstand the rigors of the scientific method. Genderism is an embarrassing by-product of ivory tower scientifically-illiterate postmodern intellectual bankruptcy. Compelling belief, that a man can become a woman, and compelling speech by coercing the use of incorrect pronouns is tyranny.
Dogs and rabbits understand the difference between male and female. So do mares and stallions, bucks and does, cow and bulls. They’ve got it all figured out!! Suddenly, some humans can’t??
Not being able to say ‘a man exposed himself to a little girl in the Women’s change room’ breaks safeguarding, is sinister and pernicious and makes rot of our civil order.
Once you consider basic grade 8 biology hate speech, you lose complete credibility.
Yours Truly,
Dissenter
Adult Human Female
aka grown up in the room
*Evidence of only TWO gametes: Mitinori Saitou, & Katsuhiko Hayashi, “Mammalian In Vitro Gemetogenesis”, Science, Volume 374, 10/01/2021.
Misgendering isn't hate speech. Humans are hard wired to accurately recognise a person's gender. It's an evolutionary trait.
By saying you're going to punish people for misgendering, you're also supporting coercive control and gaslighting. You're telling people how to think, speak and react to a situation. That also goes against the underlying principles of freedom of expression.
This endeavour does not support the trans community and will create greater division, engendering an us and them mentality.
Maybe spend more time addressing real issues, like paedophilia shared by Sophie Labelle and her diaper fetish art? Or the "be kind" people threatening rape, amongst other things, against anyone who doesn't agree 100% with gender ideology and queer theory.
Misgendering is such a misnomer.
Correctly sexing someone is truth and fact.
Reality isn’t hate speech.
Hurting feelings is never a crime.
I grew up in a communist country. During this time, I experienced what it means when the expression of facts is censored.
Today it's about biological sex, which should no longer be mentioned.
Is biological sex a fact - i.e. a verifiable, existing, recognized fact? A very short answer: people of one biological sex have the ability to bear children in their bodies, whereas people of the other sex do not. In contrast to gender identity, this fact cannot be changed. It must therefore remain possible to talk about both biological sex and gender identity.
Classifying sex-based language as harassment is the equivalent of the communist practice of censorship, something I thought should be consigned to history forever.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
I have already deleted my Instagram. I would delete my Facebook account without a second thought if you try to police my language to make my freedom of thought and speech subservient to other people’s narcissistic delusions and abusive demands. There are other platforms who show me the same adverts so no loss to me or the people trying to sell me things. We will get by fine with other middle men than Meta.
Men should not be in women’s safe spaces . This opens up the opportunity for any male to enter a women’s space claiming to “feel” female . This is dangerous- and we have safe spaces for a reason !
Women’s rights should be more important than some man’s feelings for validation! .
Women should not be told told sticking up for our rights is hate speech or bullying . We are the ones being bullied into letting men into our spaces
Your proposed rule, that would force a person to refer to a transgender person by their preferred pronouns rather than what our brains immediately tell us upon sight a person is, male or female, is wrong. If you institute such a rule, I will completely stop using Facebook. And I'm sure I'm not alone. Is that what your virtue-signalling rule is intended to do? To get rid of many millions of users of one of the most popular of social media?
Frankly, I'm tired of laws and rules which favor the transgender person over everyone else: his (usually) rights over mine, and that of other women and girls. I'm tired of our bathrooms, changing rooms, spas, showers, pools, dressing areas, Rape shelters and Domestic Violence shelters, and Women's Prisons and Women's Sports, etc.--being taken over by men. These men usually don't have honest intentions. And women and girls are getting hurt. Some very badly.
I am quite tired of losing women's and girl's safe spaces to the invasion of men, most of whom have sexual fetishes and are looking to prey on women and girls. I am sick and tired of one corporation after another being bought out by the Trans Activists. I'm sick of men being called women when they are not, and are doing terrible harm to our rights, and to the morals of America, Canada and all of Europe.
Go ahead and do virtue signalling for a very wrong intention, one that will affect your bottom line in a negative way. I can certainly live without Facebook, and it will be interesting have many users flee the media, and how fast you lose profits.
There are only two sexes, and you can not change from one to the other.
Calling a man a man and a woman a woman, is not hatespeach.
I am a member of LGB Alliance USA, an advocacy organization dedicated to defending the rights of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. Members of our group are very alarmed to learn that Meta is considering banning “misgendering” as part of its hate and harassment policy.
We believe this effort is driven by a selective misapplication of the concept of “rights.” We often hear about the “rights” of transgender people to insist on certain language. But what about the rights of gays and lesbians to name reality as they experience it according to their sexual orientation? What about the rights of women to protect their boundaries — and how can women protect their boundaries when “woman” no longer means what it has traditionally been understood to be, namely, an adult human female?
It is essential to respect any individual's right to express their beliefs. Of course, every person has the “right” to see themselves in any way they want to and to use whatever language they wish to refer to themselves. That does not mean they have a “right” to make other people endorse their personal beliefs and identities.
This means a person has a right to identify as whatever gender they want to, but that does not mean they have a right to make other people endorse their gender identity.
Meta’s commitment to fostering a fair, impartial platform would be seriously compromised by enforcing the use of “preferred pronouns.” Let’s consider the videos in question that triggered this debate. One involves a woman objecting to a trans-identified male who wanted access to a woman’s restroom; another consists of a woman criticizing a trans-identified male winning a sports event for girls. Surely, there are good faith and well-informed arguments that can be made that bathrooms and/or women's & girls’ sports teams should remain female-only. These are hotly debated topics in school boards, state legislatures, courts, and even the federal government. There is also an inherent contradiction in claiming to be open to both sides of an argument while endorsing (and even enforcing) the language of one side. How can you claim to be a fair and impartial disseminator of information when you put your thumb on the scales in favor of males’ self-identity over the objections of women who say otherwise?
Thinking how far this “pronoun enforcement” policy could go is disturbing. What if a fully intact transwoman sexually assaults and/or rapes a woman, and she then refers to her rapist as “he”? Could her rapist (and defenders of the rapist) report her for “hate” or “harassment?”
As a member of an organization that fights for the rights of same-sex attracted individuals, we have a unique window into the troubling implications of “preferred pronoun” enforcement. For decades, lesbians have seen their spaces threatened and infiltrated by males who call themselves “women” and “lesbians.” Such males manipulate lesbians into having romantic relationships with them by accusing them of “transphobia” and “bigotry” if they refuse to date them. Such lesbians who refuse face ostracism from “LGBTQ” communities as a consequence. Young lesbians are particularly vulnerable since they are often just out of the closet and lack both experience and self-confidence. Requiring that lesbians refer to such males by female pronouns only facilitates such manipulative tactics.
Now that more and more heterosexual women are transitioning and identifying as “gay men,” gay men are facing similar trouble that lesbians have. Just like lesbians, gay men have a right to guard the boundaries of their same-sex attraction and spaces and not be reported for “hate” or “harassment.”
I hope you understand that people who use natal sex-based pronouns are not engaging in bigotry. They are motivated by respect for biological reality, or perhaps they think that sex-based pronouns happen to be the best choice of language for the situation at hand. It cheapens the concept of “hate” and “harassment” by defining these terms to include “misgendering.”
Compelled speech is not free speech. And while I understand Meta is a private company, I urge them to remain steadfast in honoring a core value of the United States: freedom of speech. Only by upholding these principles can Meta preserve its integrity as a platform and ensure that diverse voices can engage openly in fair and impartial debate.
Thank you for considering our input.
“Misgendering” is a misnomer.
Correctly calling someone by their sex based pronouns is THE TRUTH.
No one should be penalized for speaking or writing the truth.
Forcing people to LIE (using “preferred” pronouns) and punishing them for NOT LYING is the most insane thing I’ve heard in a while.
Discrimination against women based on biological facts
Women have always been discriminated against, excluded from public life, exploited, enslaved, sexually abused and disenfranchised because of their biological sex. This is decided solely by their physical characteristics, which they have had since birth and which are genetically determined. Never has a woman been asked about her feelings, which are the basis of a gender identity (!), before she has been treated negatively in the ways just mentioned.
It makes no difference whether a woman appears to be tomboyish or is aggressive with her charms and thus conveys a clichéd image of women to the outside world. These two stereotypes are used by the concept of "transgender" to redefine the term "woman". As a result, "woman" is understood to mean a very specific appearance, including clothing, make-up, hairstyle and behavioral patterns that correspond to this clichéd appearance. This is insulting and sexist towards all women.
Biological facts are unchangeable
Physical biology is determined by the genetic information provided. This takes place before birth. This genetic information is unchangeable. It not only determines the appearance of a person and therefore of women, but also the biochemical processes inside the body. These processes differ from biological men to biological women. And these differences remain even if men or women undergo surgical procedures to bring them visually closer to the opposite sex. A change of sex is impossible because the internal organs are also typical for women and men. Hormone therapy is seen as an additional way out of this dilemma. However, this is an artificially induced change to special biochemical processes in the body that does not affect the genetic information, but irrevocably changes the body afterwards and also has serious health side effects because the body is not suitable for the hormone therapy in question due to its genetic information.
Information about these circumstances is of immense importance for the protection of women, because once decisions have been made, they are irreversible. You cannot reattach a breast that has been amputated. A body that has been altered with male hormones cannot be reversed. Ruined health due to such measures is and remains ruined and the woman remains a lifelong patient of various doctors. There are enough reports about women who have tried to escape their biological body with surgery and hormone therapy and bitterly regret it. The reason: inadequate information and pressure from society, which manifests itself in many ways, e.g. due to negative treatment of the female biological sex or by supporters of the transgender concept.
A safe haven for women
As already mentioned, women are disadvantaged in many respects due to their biological gender. That is why it is so important that women stand up for their rights as a group. Biological facts are important. They determine a woman's daily life in health as well as in illness, at work as well as in private life. It is therefore important that women have a place of retreat that is suitable for them, even in public spaces. This increases their safety. This not only includes changing rooms, public toilets, saunas, hospital rooms and much more. Women's sport also falls under this category.
Because physical biology also determines performance. There are enough studies that objectively prove the performance spectrum of women and men. There is virtually no overlap, but depending on the sport, women who compete against a biological man who "feels" like a woman run a high risk of injury and have virtually no chance of winning.
Public debate on all these points and more must be maintained to protect women's rights. Facts must not be negated, disregarded or banned because of a feeling. Facts are not hate speech or bullying. Facts are also provable. Feelings are not; feelings cannot be measured and are subject to permanent change.
Freedom of expression and religious belief
In addition, there is the expression of one's own opinion. That is a very valuable asset. If women are no longer allowed to name what they see and are then forced to ignore their perceptions, sometimes even with penalties, then that is brainwashing. Such an intervention is unacceptable and psychological violence against women. Because there are enough characteristics on the respective body that indicate the biological sex. These include not only the recognizable breast in women and the bulge in the crotch in men. There are also features such as: Larynx, forehead, pelvis, voice, broad/narrow shoulders, body hair (especially on the face). With the exception of a small number of people who have androgynous features, these characteristics are used by the majority of people to distinguish between male and female. Recognition takes place within a few seconds in a person's brain. This perception is not trained, it is hardwired and is part of a person's basic equipment. To negate it would mean rejecting one's own biology.
Biological facts must still be allowed to be addressed. Perception must not be suppressed and artificially altered through punishment.
The situation is similar with religion. There are religions for which there are biologically and socially only two genders, nothing in between and also not changeable. These religions, whether large or small, are discriminated against if they are forbidden to make their beliefs known in public and to stand up for their world view. The followers of these faiths are muzzled. This unequal treatment is unacceptable and pure discrimination. It must also be possible from the point of view of faith to distance oneself from the concept of "transgender" and to state why. This in turn leads to the discussion about protected retreats based on biological gender.
This ban would seriously affect all freedom of speech issues, and also freedom of belief. In attempting (and I believe it will increase hatred, not ease it) to over-compensate a tiny minority who claim that naming their biological sex is hate speech one pretty much disallows any disagreement with an ideology that has no actual scientific base and which encroaches on the rights of those of us who understand our material reality whilst putting young and vulnerable people at risk of being sucked into the cult.
We already HAVE a situation across social media where those that have no intellectual argument immediately scream about being "offended" or that a comment which is merely a statement of biological fact is "transphobic" or "hate" and the hyperbole that if we refuse to believe in THEIR belief that means we want them to not exist. This is a very good way of stopping any discussion. It is a very good way (anyone who ever hands on parented a toddler will recognise it) to make the person with the reasonable and rational argument into some kind of demon so that you can get your own way. It is a tantrum. It isn't any more real than the idea that we can be "born in the wrong body" or that "sex is a spectrum" and it is entirely unreasonable that the absolute right to believe in material reality and science AND to state factual information around that should be removed because of these tantrums and hyperbole.
I have a right to defend my sex and the rights of my sex and the duty to fight to ensure that the very safest ways of dealing with children and any issues of any kind they may have around the outdated gender stereotypes this ideology feeds on are kept to and that safeguarding carried on regardless of the way that those wishing to indoctrinate children who are really far too young to even comprehend that gender stereotypes exist, let alone that they don't have to adhere to them and that their sex isn't changed by their not liking a certain thing which has stereotypically been thought of as bound to one sex or the other.
With regard to sports. The scientific evidence (well established and peer reviewed) over time remains that anyone who has passed through male puberty (that vast wash of testosterone which ONLY happens in a body with testes) will have male advantage over females in most areas of sport. These advantages are not seriously reduced by simply reducing the testosterone levels currently in the male body. There is no cross-over point in the levels of testosterone produced by females and that in the male body - there is NO woman (even one with PCOS) who has anything like the testosterone level of even those men with the lowest end of the male scale unless the are doping, and since we all agree that "doping" is cheating (or at least, one would hope we do) then to allow males who claim to be women, or that they "feel" like a woman (whatever that may mean) or even those who suffer from 5 alpha reductase to compete against females is patently and extremely obviously completely unfair to the females involved and no decent society should even contemplate allowing female sports to be taken over by males who would be pretty second rate in the male category but who are perfectly happy to show their actual hatred of women by cheating them of the positions on teams and the medals that they have worked hard for. THAT is the real hatred involved in this argument, the blatant misogyny, complete with very male violence threats (like choking on girl dicks for instance or being raped to death) and those threats, that sickening level of misogyny? That repeatedly gets a free pass on social media even when those vile comments are made in the private messages of those who remain based in material reality and thus gender critical even when such viciousness is reported to the platform.
Compelled speech is not free speech.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four