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
I think Gender ideology should be permitted to be debated.
We lack long term research and figures.
It's a very recent trend.
If it cannot be debated, it's literally tyrannical.
In 1938, lots of people in Germany thought Nazism was great. They were proven wrong. Gender ideologues might be proven wrong too.
Civil debate about transgender issues should never be classed as “hate speech.” Open discourse on the topic is of particular importance to women’s rights, gay rights, medical research, and the ethics of pediatric medicine. The debate cuts across political lines and is of enormous interest all over the world. The near-total silence (until very recently) on transgender issues in the MSM has been incredibly harmful and I hope Meta will not collude in keeping that silence going.
If the maintenance of one group's rights (transgender people) infringes on another group's ability to defend their own rights and speak of their unique experiences, those are not rights but privileges and oppression over the second group.
Let women speak.
The opinion that men are men, women are women, that men cannot become women and women cannot become men, that the presence or absence of a Y chromosome determines whether a person is a man or a woman are not mere opinions but long-held facts. This "opinion" (which is actually a fact) should not be considered hate speech.
People should be allowed to say they are transgender, to claim a sex that they are not. It is lying and deception, but free speech allows for such and we cannot make laws prohibiting "things that are false" from being spoken -- because there are far too many examples of things that are true being declared as false, and things that are false being declared as true, and it should not be within any organization's power to shut down speech based on "truth" that may turn out to be false.
My primary concern about content regarding transgender issues is that many of the content creators creating pro-trans content are essentially grooming children for premature sexual activity, and I would like to see careful scrutiny of such content.
I deactivated my Facebook years ago and don't use it unless I have to. Social media policies are ridiculous. I'm not interested in having my morality dictated to me, especially regarding this issue. At best this is a mental health issue draped in the gay flag.
I will no longer vote Democrat based on this issue alone and I'm not voting for Kamala Harris. Tim Walz and his support for surgeries for children are disgusting. Gender affirming surgeries are mutilation. When children are concerned, this is Munchausens.
Too much of this has a pedophilic aspect to it. The transgender movement is a men's rights movement that's bad for women and girls. I wish women focused on their own rights all of these years instead of gay rights. Now we can't even control what happens inside of our bodies, but two dads get to list themselves on a birth certificate after purchasing our reproductive abilities in pieces. It's absolutely disgusting.
The gay community became everything the Republicans warned us about and I will never forgive them for that. I will never forgive the gay community for any of this. I finally see what perverts they are. AIDS is because gay men can't have protected sex and they're still doing the same thing with Covid and Monkeypox. None of them are lying when they say they're coming for your children. The indoctrination is everywhere.
I'm sick of pride throughout the summer. Summer is for all of us, not just gay men with their asses hanging out in the streets in broad daylight. The gay community isn't interested in living in a society that represents all. They're interested in forcing us to obey their wants. If that wasn't the case, they could respect women's spaces. They could respect our sports, our name in medicine and law. They could respect that not everyone wants to make them a fucking cake. I used to support gay rights fully and I never will again. I won't vote for candidates that do either.
I got my dog through Facebook. I used to buy things through Facebook. Maybe the loss of customers and elections will start waking society up on this.
I agree with Facebook's ruling regarding the post about trans-identified males participating in women's sport. To question the fairness of biologically male, trans-identified athletes to compete in the female category is not to express hate for an individual or group of individuals. The problem with labelling any questioning of whether it is fair or, indeed safe, for biologically male athletes to compete against female athletes as "hate" is that it shuts down a discussion before it even begins. Unfortunately the hate label has been used as a cudgel by activists, who although vocal, do not represent the mainstream (70% of Americans disagree with allowing biological males into women's sports) and stifling debate and discussion is deeply unhealthy for a functioning democracy. Meanwhile when Meta suppresses speech (especially, by stealth) it discredits the organization and the platform. It's credibility has already suffered following Mark Zuckerberg's revelations about censoring speech at the request of the state.
The time has come to decide where you stand on freedom of speech. The future of your platform depends on it. After all, what is the point if we can't speak our minds?
"Transgender girls" are boys by definition. Minors cannot change their legal documents in most parts of the world, most can't be prescribed cross-sex hormones, and humans cannot actually change sex anyway. Meta/Facebook/Instagram cannot and must not make it an offence to state the truth, no matter how much some people may object. If people are calling for trans identified people to be harmed in some way then moderate that. Do not moderate people simply stating facts, like the sex of athletes. Sports are divided into sex categories for a reason. It is absolutely relevant to point out when a male is competing against females. It is critical to the human rights of women and girls that they are allowed to speak out about how unfair and dangerous this can be. It is frankly bizarre that Meta should feel the need to think very hard about this. The truth is an absolute defence against defamation claims, and it should be an absolute defence against moderation demands. Censoring lies is still questionable, but is at least defensible. There is no reason EVER to moderate the truth, and every reason not to.
I agree with Meta's decisions allowing the posts to stand, for newsworthiness, but also in the interest of fair and clear debate. It is important to note that women object to trans identifying males in their spaces and competitions NOT because they're transgender. That's neither here nor there. The issue is that they are *male*. And for clarity, this needs to be able to be stated, otherwise the objections make no sense. There is also no hate in asking for segregation of males and females. Many women legitimately need it for their own dignity and safety. Gender identity is of no interest in this. It's simply a matter of fact that sex can't be changed, it's a fact of life. In reality, it's not kind to pretend it can be, or that we cannot spot most males instantly.
I do not think transgender people's rights and identity should be up for debate. If a white person told a black person that they were not allowed to use the bathroom or compete in a certain sport because it was "white-only" then that would be understood by the overwhelming majority of upright people as Hate Speech and Bullying and Harassment. This would still be true if the victim was white-passing, and the harasser was questioning their race/ethnicity. I believe the same standard should apply for transgender people.
As it is, we live in a world where the somewhat nebulous concept "free speech" is highly valued, and attempting to carve out what counts as either speech that is an "incitement to violence" or directly "violent speech" creates a tension between opposing "rights" in which the freedom of speech is valued more highly than the freedom from harm. Because of this I, unfortunately, believe that Meta is unlikely to strengthen their guidelines in the near future to the extent that I outlined above. Therefore I will pragmatically try to make the most clear recommendation that I can:
Supposing Meta allows the general category of "gender identity debate videos" it remains the case that:
- Filming someone using the loo and posting that video publicly without their consent constitutes bullying and harassment, regardless of the topic of discussion.
- Questioning the eligibility of a minor in a sporting event via a public video constitutes bullying harassment, regardless of ineligibility argument.
Therefore the two specific examples in question fall foul of Meta's existing guidelines and should be removed.
I am not familiar with Meta's current "hate speech" policy, but imagine that it prevents people with questions or concerns about the gender identity movement to use classic sex-based pronouns for trans-identifying people or even to call trans women "trans-identifying males" or trans men "trans-identifying females." And, this is wrong. VERY wrong. That people, and especially women, are not allowed to accurately label someone with a pronoun in accordance with their sex at conception or call them "male" or "female" in accordance with their actual sex is highly discriminatory and tips the scales in terms of favoring the promotion of the current transgender movement (priviliging self-ID over the material reality of sex; granting trans-identifying males the right to access female single-sex spaces, services, sports, and apps; and, stripping girls and women of fair play in sports & sex-based safeguards (safety, privacy, dignity, bodily autonomy and freedom from male-on-female sexual harassment...voyeurism, exhibitionism, sexual assault, and even rape) in spaces where they're (human females) are vulnerable.
Moreover, a "hate speech" policy such as that above would is not even in alignment with material reality as there is NO scientific evidence of any quality or note that even supports the existence of "gender identities." NONE whatsoever. So, that being the case, why has META and other social media apps (and, many other entities throughout society, for that matter), sought to squash accurate speech that is civil, upholds material reality, and questions the new gender identity orthodoxy?
Why is this happening? And, why has META played a prominent role in this alarming and highly misogynist development? Girls and women must be able to call males "MALES" (or "men" or "boys" or "he/him") no matter how they subjectively self-ID...males who appropriate their words, single-sex spaces, services, and sports.
Sex is immutable and real. Gender identity is a human invention that a minority of powerful people have imposed on the world.
These powerful people claim to be oppressed and vulnerable victims of people who do not subscribe to their ideology of Wrong Body Birth.
Those of use who do not believe that one can change one’s physical traits to match one’s “internal sense of gender” are not allowed to express this view on Meta. I have been repeatedly banned for saying that. It is absurd.
Reality is one thing and beliefs are another. People who believe in Wrong Body Birth should have the right to express their ideas on Meta and those of us who think Wring Body Birth is nonsense should have an equal voice on this platform.
Opposition an idea is not hate. That is a childish and dangerous concept that silences dissent. Freedom of expression is necessary for healthy platforms.
Meta has to stop banning people for challenging Wrong Body Birth adherents.
I suggest reviewing publications that promote social gender/sex transition. It has been scientifically proven that social transition is not harmless, that hormones and sex reassignment surgeries have consequences on people's health. And there is a social contagion among teenagers, who after a few years regret transitioning. The number of desisters and detransitioners around the world is increasing.
You have the power in your hands to stop all this, please don't look to the side
Reality as we know it can not be considered offensive.
Unfortunately (or not) no one is safe from the possibility of being offended, the only thing we should refrain ourselves from is deliberately hurting people, through words or any other way, but if we start considering reality as a type of offense then we are walking towards silencing. Stating a fact shouldn't be seen as offensive and questioning someone is not necessarily doubting this person but just making sure everyone involved is aware of all the necessary facts to make a decision.
Social media has always been, among other things, a safe space for exchanging ideas. The only ideas worth exchanging are the ones that makes us wonder, question our certainties and seek knowledge, and that will never be achieved if the ideas in question are all going in the same direction.
There is no point in getting into the ideology of it, the reasons why the gender debate is so sensitive and so tense right now, but what should be done is the warranty of a safe, mixed, shared debate about it, with different perspectives and approaches.
That is why said posts should remain online and "misgendering" is not a form of bullying or harassment; it is simply someone's view of the situation. If someone is born a male then anyone, especially women or girls' parents, have the right to state this fact and worry about safe places for women and children. Transgender people are not above questioning and it's paramount that we keep it that way. That is equality.
Thank you
There is nothing transphobic in using correct pronouns in line with someone's biological sex. It's just stating an immutable fact. There is no rule that everyone should play along someone's delusion. They are free to believe they are the opposite sex, but no one is obliged to believe in their cultish ideology.
Women's spaces are protected by law and should stay safe for biological women only. Same for sports.
If I believe in God this doesn't mean that everyone should believe in it too. It is not considered Hate speech if someone openly express they don't believe in the existence of God.
The way transgender people (which in my opinion exist in their minds only) are free to express their ideological believes, the same way everyone is free to express not believing in these ideological beliefs.
Human males are stronger, faster and more agressive than human females. The profile of crimes commited by human males is significantly different and more violent than human females. The crimes commited by trans-identified human males is more violent even than their not-trans counterparts.
Besides that, it is not strange in the course of history that invidividuals claim to have some characteristic that they don't really have, only to gain some benefit (like entering a female sport, whose top scores are very lower than male category). It becomes impossible to discern the fraud from the real if the only identification is self-identification.
So it is imperative that debate not be interdicted by not allowing people that are critic of the above to manifest in social networks.
The feelings of some men can't me more important that the physical security of half the humanity.
Let me be brief because I am extremely busy as all women are. The Facebook platform is an important source of information for women all over the world and you, facebook, decided to take on this responsibility. You have all massively profited , and you owe the public, from whom your wealth comes. This whole set of issues, of men in women's spaces is a crucial, issues for this election and for our collective futures. Please note European and Nordic countries are seriously rethinking badly formed policy around child transitions and surgery, please note the avalanche of evidence for women's privacy, safety and dignity, and please note that even the massive wall of disinformation and forced teaming will not make women comply. We know the truth and you delegitimize your platform, take note: you delegitimize your platform when you participate in disinformation. I
Stop it.now. Women are leaving because your platform is delegitimized. You want a platform? Get with it.
I am increasingly disturbed at now routine bias in discussion about the intersection of transgender rights and the rights of other disparate interest groups, who are now routinely and inexplicably referred to as “anti-trans”.
The idea that a person is “trans” or “born in the wrong body”, is an entirely ideological concept, of which there is no evidence. As with other faith-based or religious ideas, it is extreme and totalitarian to force everyone to subscribe to a set of beliefs- for instance that any man who claims to be a woman should be allowed to access women’s and girls’ changing rooms, toilets, hospital wards and refuges, simply on his say-so.
97 percent of sexual crime is committed by men, against mostly women and children. Reliable research shows that when men identify as women, their rates of sexual offending do not decrease.
Women have fought hard for their rights, and now they are being vilified for protecting them, routinely described as bigots, “TERFs” and “anti- trans”.
I have worked with women and children escaping domestic violence. I work with children in care, who have been molested and traumatised by male violence. Almost all women have at some point from childhood have been groped, leered at, put down, creeped out, or much worse- by men.
It is impossible for many of us to recover, or to ever feel safe, with the current rights of men haven been given free access to what were our safe places. Women’s places of refuge were hard fought for, by mostly working class women. They are now being vacuously handed over by politicians, supported by privileged middle class women. This is true also for women’s sports, where men too mediocre to ever qualify as elite sportsmen are now routinely taking out women’s awards and prizes.
The widespread public funding of transactivist lobby groups under the guise of ‘diversity and inclusion’ consultants and advisors, has now led to the ideological capture of public institutions at every level of government, as well as large corporations.
This is anti democratic and is in direct opposition to the separation of government from faith-based ideology. Transgenderism is an entirely faith based ideology with no basis in scientific fact or evidence of kind. It is corrosive to community, family and childhood, and promotes the sexual rights of autogynephilic men over the safety and freedom of all other people. Any criticism of transgender ideology is met with accusations of “hate speech”, “anti-trans” and insults (terf/ bigot etc). This gaslighting is wholly sanctioned and approved of by most online applications, including public media platforms. This is ignorant and anti democratic.
There is an urgent need for a return to real investigation of these issues, by brave media capable of critical thinking. Otherwise you are promoting ignorance, bigotry and the polarising of a debate which is in fact incredibly nuanced, interesting, and of high public interest.
There is an incredible amount of information that has been censored by the totalitarian nature of the transgender lobby. Much of it is incredibly fascinating and makes for unbelievably compelling news worthy of investigation. The general population remain confident of their righteous defence of transgenderism due to being ignorant of the facts.
The peddling of transgenderism to children is fast becoming known (outside of Australia) as the biggest psychosocial and medical scandal in decades. This can’t change fast enough. Hundreds of children are currently tricked by adults, into believing that they can change sex. The research shows that children who identify as “trans” will, if encouraged to embrace puberty with all its chaos and angst, emerge as young gay adults. Instead, the adults that are supposed to support and help these children are in effect “transing away the gay”, in what is just medical conversion ‘therapy’. Gay and lesbian kids are being made into “fake straight kids”, shoe-horned into hackneyed stereotypes based on trivial concepts of ‘male’ and ‘female’. Their young bodies are being excluded from ever experiencing sexual feelings, and they will be unable to reproduce. They are too young to be considered able to consent to a tattoo, but are being given the option of synthetic hormones to delude them into thinking they can avoid being their true sex.
No child is born in the wrong body.
There is no such thing as a male or female ‘gender role, and no one has ever been able to define what that is.
Discussion of these issues has been shut down for far too long, under oppressive censorship by trans lobby groups. It’s time to let truth shine out.
Women must be able to use words that describe our unique experience dictated by our physical reality, and we must be able to defend our sex-based rights to name male oppression.
Forcing women upon pain of social exclusion to use words such as "woman, she, her or girl" when referring to males, is forcing us to participate in our own erasure and humiliation. It is male oppression , writ large.
Social media is the world's town square and a great social equalizer. Banning women who refuse to accept the new social religion of gender ideology, is an act of theocratic totalitarianism.
Tracey Berube
To say a trans woman is a male person, or a trans man is a female person is not hate speech or bullying/harassment on its own, they are statements of fact.
The fact that some individuals are sensitive to this information does not transform these statements into hate speech or bullying/harassment.
The manner in which these statements are made can transform them into hate speech or bullying/harassment. Examples might include a user bombarding another with messages containing these statements and threatening language, publishing these statements with private information in an attempt to dox, and circumventing blocks and limits by the creation of accounts to send multiple messages containing these statements in an effort to bother or intimidate.
Meta should not censor legal speech.
To more finely address the feedback requested:
Speech and Bullying practices are necessary for a positive user experience. However, stifling discussion of important events and cultural ideas is not anti-bullying; its anti-intellectual. It cruelly offers people a partial understanding that limits our ability to make informed decisions for ourselves. It strips our autonomy and treats us as these things that are too fragile and must be hand-held through life.
As for the complexity of hosting minors on your site - why not have a separate product for children? Outside of that, censoring adults because children have unlimited access to your platforms (because the adults in their lives permit so/do not stop them from doing so) seems silly. People have the ability to not use your platform if they are displeased with it. Parents have the ability to limit device/platform access for their own children.
I believe self-reporting will continue to provide a valuable metric for what really offends people, but it can be abused by users trying to jam up a particular user or limit a particular message. Still, valuable data.
Users have always had the ability to limit who views and engages with their content, the ability to block and limit users or messages they find displeasing. It is the user's responsibility to curate an environment they like (or to leave). It is not possible to create an environment where each user never encounters displeasure. Nor should you want to create such an environment.
As for the final point: freedom of expression and "the rights of transgender people, especially for access to single-sex spaces and participation in sporting events." This is a political statement in the sense that one's politics will greatly inform how this statement is interpreted.
For example, a reasonable person might say that freedom of expression is why trans people can feel free to express themselves how they like without fear of government oppression. It does not, however, mean that individuals have to respond to this freedom of expression in a positive manner. No one had the right to physically harm another. But emotions are fragile, and to say that no person has the right to emotionally harm a person is a trickier standard because we emotionally hurt people often without intent.
Moreover, saying a transgender woman is a male, and referring to males as he/him is sometimes expressed intentionally or unintentionally. Sex recognition is an innate (thus instantaneous) response to hearing or seeing another person. These reasons increase the likelihood of punishing innocent speech as hate speech.
Let people talk. Let people counter hate speech with compassionate speech. Let people who have different approaches and ideas see how others operate. Let people exercise their abilities to block, mute, otherwise limit content they do not wish to see (or put down the phone - this may actually improve metrics/revenues by decreasing wasted time on Meta and increasing engaged (read: ad absorbing) time).
Thanks.
Hate Speech has no universal definition. Free Speech includes the right to offend, mock, and insult other people. Among the middle class, we prefer polite speech, which is why many of use "Politically Correct" speech, to be polite - nothing more. So the first consideration is how this impacts lower class individuals who use rude speech as a part of their day to day lives - hate speech rules negatively impact them more than middle class individuals who routinely practice being polite.
I want rules that are clear, fair, and apply to everyone. I want death threats removed, even if someone "was just joking". I want threats of violence removed.
But insults are much harder to police, and I don't envy any one trying, but there shouldn't be categories of people you aren't allowed to insult.
There are two camps in Transgender Rights, the first is the Medical Model. The idea is that people are mentally ill and transition is the cure. The evidence is flimsy and long term outcomes are poor, but let's ignore that for now.
When it comes to mental health, I do almost feel that some people (the rather famous 'Chris Chan' comes to mind) should be prevented from accessing social media for their own good, but I don't think this is something Facebook can do. You can't build your platform around protecting the mentally ill.
I think most of us have compassion for those who suffer.
So the argument "don't allow discussion, as the mentally ill can't handle seeing the discussion" isn't a fair argument. There could be settings for individual users that allow them to better restrict what they can see, so if they want to block content from their feed they can.
The second camp is "Gender Ideology" - which I define as Martine Rothblatt's book "Transhuman to Transgender" that argues that humans have a mind separate from the body, the mind should be recognized as the "real" human, and using technology to modify our bodies should be a reframed as a human right. It argues Transgender is a concept that can be used to begin solidifying this idea in law, that gender should replace sex in law, that children should be taught to "explore" gender, and that body modifications should be seen as morally neutral.
This second part is most definitely an ideology, I don't agree with it, I ought to be able to say I don't agree with it.
Meta was absolutely correct in their assessments. Neither of these cases constituted a ‘hate crime’, however much activists might say otherwise. It is not ‘hate’ to state biological fact and push back against incursions into women’s rights and women’s spaces.
In both instances there was a clash of ‘rights’ - and it would be monumentally wrong for Meta to protect one group’s rights over another group’s rights.