केस विवरण
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.
टिप्पणियाँ
Acknowleding a person's biological sex is not hate speech. It's not even hateful. It's a long-standing and scientifically accurate distinction between the biological categories of male and female.
While I understand the plights of those who believed they've been emotionally harmed by misgendering, to cease the free expression of those who speak of biological sex isn't going to suddenly take away those perceived emotional harms.
Biological sex and gender are different, according to Psychology Today:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/language-in-the-mind/202308/why-biological-sex-is-not-the-same-as-gender
And in Nature, the study recognizes the need to acknowledge biological sex and its overall importance.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41580-022-00467-w
Stop playing pop-culture, ideologicall driven political games and retain the rights of all of Metas users to use the definitions of sex and gender most appropriate for them at the individual level, not as an ideological zeitgeist.
Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right that is essential for the functioning of a democratic society. It allows individuals to share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions without fear of censorship or retaliation.
Limiting freedom of expression on Facebook can have several negative consequences. It can hinder the exchange of diverse perspectives, which is crucial for fostering understanding and tolerance among different communities.
Moreover, freedom of expression is vital for holding those in power accountable. Social media platforms like Facebook play a significant role in enabling citizens to voice their concerns. By restricting this freedom, we risk undermining the very principles of transparency and accountability that are essential for a just and equitable society.
I urge Meta to reconsider any policies that limit freedom of expression and to ensure that Facebook remains a platform where individuals can freely express themselves.
I am against any changes that would penalize the use of language that identifies people by their genetic/biological sex. I disagree with requiring the use of preferred pronouns over the use of biologically correct language.
Everyone should live free from discrimination and harassment. This includes women, who are currently being dismissed on an industrial scale with regards to their sex based rights. See Afghanistan’s current regime’s oppression of women - it is because of their female sex, nothing else.
Correctly sexing someone and pointing out biological reality is not hateful, neither is it harassment, bullying, intimidation or discrimination.
We must be able state the truth, and those who are easily offended by the truth need to remove themselves from the conversation, not expect everyone else to.
Every sympathy should be extended to people who are questioning their gender, but they should not be able to dictate reality to everyone else.
Stating the biological sex of someone is not hate speech, it's a material fact and in the UK the belief that sex is real and immutable is protected in law. Why are you basing policy on an unevidenced belief system and not scientific fact, to appease a small group of mentally ill individuals?
People have the right to correctly identify someone's biological sex - that is not hateful, it's just a fact of life. Men can't be women and women's rights hinges on this fundamental fact.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment. I am against banned and compelled speech entirely in the United States since we still have guaranteed Freedom of Speech in this country according to the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution. As a conservative, I know my speech has been censored by Facebook repeatedly over the past 8 years. I have taken long breaks from social media, deleted the Facebook app from my phone, and have contemplated deleting my profiles entirely because of this free speech issue. The only things that keep me on Facebook are the private groups and my family who live out of state. It keeps me connected. That being said, if Facebook does indeed "ban misgendering" I will delete my Facebook profiles and never look back. Misgendering is NOT hate speech and this virtue signaling has been taken way too far. "Gender is a social construct", sex is immutable and apparently is a different thing entirely. Facebook needs to stop conflating sex and gender and stick to the facts of reality. I am not an "extremist, right-wing bigot" for having these views but I am entitled to my opinions as guaranteed by our inalienable rights, but Big Tech seems to want to keep chipping away at these Rights. You can do that in other countries, dictatorships, even Democracies like in Europe, but not in a Constitutional Republic. A 'private corporation" with as much reach and influence as Facebook needs to take their own social responsibility more seriously and protect the rights of ALL groups - not just the current trendy ones. I am so disappointed with Facebook on this issue. I feel betrayed. They have been collecting all our data, firstly without our direct knowledge or consent, and are now using it against us and to their own gain. They are and have been "silencing conservatives" for years and it is a violation of our rights as a citizenry, and mine personally. I am so done.
Correctly identifying someone’s sex is not “Hate Speech”. Talking about scientific facts and protecting the rights of women and girls is not “Hate Speech”. Safeguarding children including gender-questioning children is not “Hate Speech”. Allowing people to voice perfectly normal viewpoints including that human beings cannot literally change sex and that sometimes both men and women need single-sex spaces for safety, dignity or medical necessity isn’t “Hate Speech” and is in the interests of everyone including vulnerable people, including trans-identified people. We all have a right decline to use preferred or “assumed preferred” pronouns because in English these words are based on sex not on a cultish ideological nonsense that will soon go the way of the dinosaur or video cassette. Save yourselves the trouble of reversing any draconian policies which will look sadly outdated in hopefully a few months.
Misgendering isn’t a crime. It’s the natural response to someone who tries to compel you to speak the way that they want. A man who insists he is a woman should have no right to force me to call him female. He is not. I should not have to play into his delusion to appease him. I have a right to speak truthfully. A man can never be a woman, and compelling me to say otherwise is a direct infringement on my right to free speech.
"Misgendering" is not hate speech, it is identifying someone by their correct biological sex.
This is outright discrimination against women. Misgendering isn't real and is just another way to silence women. You cannot force people to say exactly what you want. This is not hate speech. People have every right to not buy into someone's delusion. The only reason Rachel Dolezal is vilified is because she's a woman. If a man claimed they're a different race, they wouldn't have their life destroyed and society would accept it.
I'm done using your misogynistic platform you fucking piece of shit.
I am a woman, a daughter, a sister, and a mother of a male and female child, now in adulthood,
and I am a sex-realist, which means I follow science eg from Genetic Scientists, Sports Scientists, Gynaecologists.
I use statistical data eg from the UK Ministry of Justice, and the considered opinions of many professionals working in Mental Health, and especially Child Safeguarding and Brain Development, and the many women working to end Domestic Abuse, Femicide, Sex Trafficking and Child Trafficking
Apart from individuals and organisations which have a vested interest in promoting a belief in gender (which is a set of socially constructed beliefs, which vary between cultures and over time) the vast majority of people know they were, like all other mammals, gestated in born from a female body.
We know that the vast majority of sexual crime is committed by males and it is of vital importance that we are able to identify males and females.
We know that male puberty delivers massive advantages to the adult male body, regardless of any changes he may later make, which means he competes in the female category to the detriment of women
Young women are losing college scholarships to mediocre males who wouldn't cut it against their peers. Is this fair? Why should those women be forced to deny the sex of those males robbing them of their opportunities?
Already, due to errors created by the incorrect use of "gender" rather than sex, patients in Emergency medical settings have been harmed. Lives have been lost
On the other side of medical and social care, I know women with disabilities who have been subjected to horrendous abuse and bullying because they want intimate care to be provided by other females. Are the rights of a healthy male, who wishes to present in a feminine manner, more important than those they have a duty to care for?
And would a truly caring person wish to make a vulnerable patient feel even more vulnerable and scared?
What I didn't mention earlier is that I have experienced Domestic Abuse & Violence, that I have been revenge raped by an ex boyfriend, and I have suffered harms due to actual hatred.....of women. It is significantly more important that we address misogyny on social media, than it is to appease the views of a minority with differing beliefs about "ideas of sexual presentation"
I believe with all my heart that feminine males and masculine females are wonderful, and that people should be free to express themselves and present themselves how they wish, just so long as this is done honestly and doesn't detract from the rights of others.
You don't force me to believe in Jesus, Allah, Shiva etc, because my lack of belief might offend believers
Why then, do you think it appropriate to force me to tell lies ie say things I do not believe to be true, to avoid offending believers in gender?
Please deal with the far more significant issue of misogyny, before compelling women to deny what we can see with our own eyes.
If I call myself The King, would you address me, as "Your Royal Highness"?
Time to get real and sex-realistic, Meta
I understand that Meta is intending to ban misgendering on its platforms and categorise it as a hate crime. Correctly sexing human beings is not a hate crime. Women need to highlight the assault on women’s rights by men. In countries around the world, from Australia with the Tickle v Giggle case to the denial of basic human rights in Afghanistan, women are being told that their rights to privacy, dignity and safety are less important than prioritising the feelings of a small number of men. If Meta pursues this course of action, it will be colluding in the erasure of women’s basic human rights.
Humans ability to correctly sex another human is a basic natural instinct. This is even more important for women to be able to keep themselves & children safe.If we are going to pretend we can’t tell the sex of a person then how would we know if we’re straight or gay?How do you know who to ask on a date? Social media companies cannot take away the basic human instinct to recognise the sex of another human. All TWAM without exception.
"Gender debate"? There is no gender debate. Men (XY chromosomes) are men and women (XX chromosomes) are women. Men are NOT women, no matter how much makeup they wear, what kind of clothing they have on, or the number of surgeries they may (or may not) have undergone.
Men in women's spaces need to be called out for inappropriate behavior, NOT glorified, and that includes referring to them by the correct pronouns: he and him. "Misgendering" is not a hate crime, nor is it even a thing. CORRECT gendering is.
Please don't fall into the tar pit of gender ideology.
I am concerned about biological women's spaces being taken over by men claiming to be women. I have been harassed by a trans woman at a bar when he claimed to be lesbian and wanted to sit next to me and I refused. I have witnessed biological males harassing biological women in bars and restaurants, following them into the bathrooms. The males are the ones protected when they claim they "identify as a woman". I have walked into a woman's bathroom at a restaurant with a man standing peeing with the stall door open saying "it's OK, I am a woman". Biological women need their own spaces, in public and on the internet and in sports. "Gender Identity" has been giving trans women a free pass to bully biological females. I have 2 teenage daughters, and they need their own spaces, online and in public. I don't want anyone bullied, but free speech and biological women's safety are very important.
Please don't impost a quasi-religious belief system on us, this is insane.
PREFACE: IF YOU PROCEED WITH YOUR PLAN (AS I SUSPECT YOU WILL) THEN I WILL QUIT FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM AND JUST USE AND PROMOTE TWITTER. I HAVE ALREADY LEFT YOU TUBE AND ONLY USE RUMBLE (TO POST VIDEOS AND TO WATCH THE VIDEOS OF OTHERS). I HAVE 1000 + FACEBOOK FRIENDS, BUT I DO NOT CARE. I REFUSE TO CALL A MAN A WOMAN! I REFUSE TO CALL A GIRL A BOY OR NON-BINARY!
The fight for women’s rights requires an understanding of sex.The biological distinction between men and women has been the criteria by which women have been discriminated against, excluded from public life, exploited, enslaved, sexually abused, and disenfranchised throughout history. Women are not asked how they identify or how they see themselves before they experience these things. Women’s feelings are wholly irrelevant to their condition and standing in this world.
While feminism has sought to improve women’s status by dismantling sex stereotyping, the concept of “transgender” depends on the continued existence and amplification of these same sex stereotypes. Women and girls are female whether or not they look, act, or live their lives in a stereotypically feminine manner. To believe that sex is determined by a gendered soul or feminine appearance is to believe that femininity is the same thing as being female. This belief is offensive and harmful to women.
Sex is objective and immutable, while gender is socially constructed and is harmful and oppressive to women and girls.
“Sex” and “gender” both have distinct definitions and criteria. Sex is an immutable characteristic based in reality. It is defined by reproductive function; a male produces sperm and a female produces eggs, gestates, and gives birth. The National Institute of Health (NIH) describes sex as “a classification based on biological differences . . . between males and females rooted in their anatomy and physiology. By contrast, gender is a classification based on the social construction (and maintenance) of cultural distinctions between males and females.” The World Health Organization (WHO) agrees, defining “gender” as “the socially constructed roles, behaviour, activities and attributes that a particular society considers appropriate for men and women.” WHO further notes that these socially constructed roles “give rise to gender inequalities, i.e., differences between men and women that systematically favor one group.”
A person who believes in gender identity believes that a woman is a person (male or female) who “identifies” as a woman. But a man identifying as a member of the female sex would mean identifying as a member of the reproductive class that produces eggs, gestates, and gives birth. Of course, that is impossible.
Women have single-sex sports for a reason. Even in the U.S., despite ostensible legal equality between the sexes, there are still significant disadvantages to being born female, including many barriers to women’s participation in sports. Including the increased risk of physical harm to women and girls participating in sports, the risk of sexual assault and abuse from coaches or other athletes, menstruation and its impact on the body, and the risk of pregnancy, wanted or not, and its impact on athletic performance — a uniquely female experience.
A female athlete does not escape any of these obstacles, nor does she gain any competitive advantage, by self-identifying as male. Likewise, a male athlete’s self-identification as female does not subject him to this same myriad of obstacles female athletes face, so he retains an innate competitive advantage regardless of his subjective identity claims.
Meta’s Bullying and Harassment Community Standard prohibits “cognizable attacks and calls for exclusion.” Calling a male participating in women’s sports male (or referring to him as a “man” or “boy”) is not exclusion. Male athletes could always participate in sports, limited only by their own ability and determination. Girls, however, have been systematically excluded from sports in the United States until very recently, with the culture only changing after being forced to by law (Title IX). When a boy takes a spot on a girls’ team, a girl has been excluded.
If calling out males who choose to take the spots of women and girls in athletics is considered “exclusion” and “hate speech”, then all support for women’s sports should be banned by Meta — because women’s sports inherently exclude men. Or, to put it in terms Meta may understand: This is a feature, not a bug.
Gender Identity is a pseudo-religious belief with no basis in reality that should not be forced on others
Freedom of speech includes the ability to express your belief in any number of scientifically absurd ideas — often called “religion.”
The disconnect of the metaphysical “gender identity” from the physical sexed body is comparable to the religious concept of a soul: “the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.”
Some religions may sincerely believe in the soul, and those individuals should have the right on Meta and elsewhere to express that belief. But, perhaps even more important, is the right to express the belief that one does not have a soul, regardless of what a prominent and powerful community may say.
Meta should not force the belief of a gender identity on others any more than it would force any other unscientific religious belief. To force individuals to call a man “she,” especially in the context of a debate on women’s rights, is forcing women to claim adherence to this false belief system in order to participate in public life on Meta.
Women’s freedom of speech is threatened when we can not speak the truth about our oppression
The sociopolitical context of this debate is extremely concerning.
Advocates for the gender identity movement have encouraged the view that it is hate speech not to speak and act at all times as though a person’s claimed gender identity was their real sex. Women have been fired from their jobs, threatened with and faced real-world violence, and in Europe even faced legal consequences — all for calling a man a man.
In one of the most egregious examples of women’s free speech being violated, victims of rape have been forced to call their male rapist “she” in court — which WoLF has directly witnessed.
How can women truly discuss the impact of male violence and patriarchy on our lives when we are not allowed to name the problem?
The Oversight Board claims to prioritize supporting the freedom of expression of women as a strategic priority. If Meta were to ban stating a person’s sex as “hate speech”, women would no longer be able to meaningfully engage in public discussion about feminism, patriarchy, their rights, or male violence on Meta’s platforms.
Proposed Policies
In alignment with the Oversight Board’s stated goal of protecting women’s “rights to freedom of expression on social media,” we encourage Meta to adopt a policy explicitly protecting women’s ability to advocate for their rights, including by not limited to:
The right to properly identify the sex of an individual or groups of individuals
The right to advocate for women’s single-sex spaces (including in sports) for the purpose of protecting women’s safety, dignity, and societal advancement
The right to advocate for women’s rights, with recognition that there is a known conflict between laws and policies promoting "gender identity" and women’s rights.
The right to advocate for LGB rights, especially the protection of lesbians, including protection from heterosexual biological males who call themselves lesbians.