Descrição do caso
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.
Comentários
Men aren't women so shouldn't be in women's spaces
If women can't say "there's a man with his penis out in here"
Then Meta will be complicit in the sexual abuse of women & children
It is not hateful or bigoted, nor does it actually harm anyone to tell the truth about sex and material reality. The cornerstone of free speech is that it has to be free - and as long as it is not incitement to actual violence in real life - as in encouraging or ordering others to harm someone physically - it should be allowed. No-one is compelled to listen, no-one is compelled to agree and people can vigorously disagree as long as they follow the same rules. I don't believe in the ideology of gender identity. I don't believe that people can change sex and there is no proof that anyone ever has. I don't believe that clothing, mannerisms, stereotypes or social expectations define someone's sex either. It is not hateful to point out a man when we see one, in fact, it may be dangerous for women and children if they cannot state the truth before their very eyes. I'd rather leave Meta than be compelled to pretend men are women, and thats a shame because I do enjoy the apps. Many Facebook, Instagram and Whats App users are older people so making it a bannable offence to correctly sex someone is likely to be a poor business decision anyway.
I believe that Facebook is considering silencing women and women’s groups in their fight for justice in women’s rights across the world. I am referring to the proposal to bring in a world wide ban on misgendering. Attempts have been made throughout history, and various cultures currently, to silence women. The Taliban are currently front and centre for actually forbidding women to speak. I did not, in my wildest dreams imagine that a platform invented for discourse and connection would try to use it to silence half the population. How can women fight for their sports and privacy if they cannot name their injustice. But that is the point, is it not? This has already been decided in the UK courts as a free speech issue. This is an attempt to return to ‘no debate’ and silence women. This will not end well for Facebook.
Women and girls are hugely impacted by transgenderism. We are at risk of sexual abuse and violence. We must be able to call a man what he is. If you stop us from speaking the truth you are no better than the taliban in Afghanistan.
Sex is a protected characteristic has been for 50 years. Our great grandmothers and grandmother's fought for over a 100 years for our rights. We women have the right to our words and language. Men are not women and it is abhorrent in a free and democratic society for you to attempt to silence and bully us into accepting gender ideology. Gender ideology at its core is homophobic, misogynistic and regressive. Social media is a public square and by passing this barbarian rule imposes communist and socialist ideas that destroys free speech. You might as well enslave women, put us in chains and gag us now because passing this rulings is doing exactly that. The only people who's rights you will be removing is 52% of the population and that are actually women. No matter what you do, we will not accept that a man is a woman and we will resist your misogynistic ideology. What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of debate because you are wrong? The more you silence us, the stronger our resistance will become and the more we will win.
It is bullying itself to not let, people, women mainly and therefore also misogynistic, call a male person a man, as we've been doing for many, many centuries. Men often like to exert control over women and this is just one more way, not letting women speak their truth, it's not too many steps away from the Taliban not letting women speak at all, in public. It's also quite totalitarian to try to control people in this way.
Facebook is already dying a death and this will be one more nail in the coffin.
It is not hate to correctly state a persons sex, nor is it hate to correctly state a persons true history should that history include gender-switching or sex change operations. Considering the fact that it is a biological impossibility to change one's sex as a mammailian animal, This ban is effectively an attack against freedom of speech and liberty of thought; it is an attack against liberty itself, if you really consider the implications of it... I sincerely ask of you not to push through such censorship, it is bound to lose you millions of users as we realise we're not allowed to even say what we see anymore.
Pronouns in the English and many languages are the long held practice of addressing the sex of a person in conversation and introduction for thousands of years.
As it is impossible to change one’s sex it continues to be the common held and appropriate address.
If one suffers from the rare mental disorder of gender dysphoria and prefers to present as the stereotypical appearance of that sex that is their own personal journey. Those that choose to address them in their preferred pronouns that is their CHOICE. Not a requirement to change a lifetime of core beliefs to satisfy a mental disorder.
One hopes that those with gender dysphoria are not misrepresenting themselves via other mental health problems for personal gains or to access spaces reserved for the opposite sex.
This issue ONLY negatively affects females. Males don’t have to worry about females in their private spaces or sport category for all the reasons that we segregate those spaces.
The new and fast growing objection to addressing a male with female pronouns has really come to the fore front due to the last 2 Olympics exposure of trans and DSD athletes in the female category leading them down the rabbit hole of the push of what was once a medical condition to teaching gender ideology in grade school. This has opened the door for medical profits from kids being put on permanent life altering puberty blockers and most recently some states at the precipice of approving gender reassignment surgery on minors as early at 13 yrs.
Most of us mothers that have raised kids especially girls to adults go through the difficult time of watching them navigate puberty. A girl goes from being patted on the head from older makes to feeling almost threatened or uneasy as the interaction shifts to looking at their body differently. This stage rarely goes smoothly for females and last a few years. They go from feeling innocently safe to having to learn to be hyper vigilant about their safety. They are lucky (in fact it’s rare) to reach adult hood without some sort of sexual assault from minor unwanted touching to rape.
These are the facts of women’s lives. For many, to expect a woman to address a male with female pronouns is their assent to them in their last safe spaces. And they overwhelmingly don’t. We’ve been taught to be polite women. An assertive woman is “bossy” or a B….. A man that is assertive is lauded and identified as a leader.
So we’ve been nice and tried to be understanding to those extremely rare few that had gender dysphoria. Likely we’d never encountered someone with it in our life.
From grade school, to women’s only job positions , rape crisis centers , bathrooms and sports categories and the scholarships attached to them we are encountering this daily.
Males are not displaced in any way in this ideology but they are waking up to. What’s happening in schools to their kids.
So for females young and old this ideology only prejudices against females.
That is why women in vast numbers are deciding that the use of long held common beliefs of pronouns for the sexes are the starting point of protecting their sex based rights. To speak the truth is not hate. It may be disagreeable to a very few loud voices but it is just the truth.
Meta can certainly make its own rules. And if there is a complaint about an incorrect pronoun and they meet out punishment, shouldn’t they then exact a more severe punishment if violence is threatened? Many have complained about bad characters calling for the death, physical violence and all sorts of terrible things to “terfs”. I’ve seen “Death to Terfs” so many times on Facebook and Instagram it’s crazy! These accounts stay active.
I urge Meta to seriously rethink this proposed action. The pendulum on this issue is quickly swinging back propelled by the push to medicalize children. My belief is that in a couple of years this ideology will waned and drastically reduce due to the fast growing push back by parents.
The world isn’t California’s silicone valley where those with highly expansive and creative minds created alternative realities through tech. These minds typically don’t fit in well in the average communities of people.
These creative minds are critical for the advancement of humans however their expectations of how the world should be through their eyes is most often impossible and not practical. To expect a vast society to behave or speak as they, an extraordinary small minority of creative ever changing minds, dictate via the social media platforms is almost tyrannical.
This is a wrong move and I think may backfire in such a massive way that you may not be prepared for. I don’t know how but the masses will always stand up if pushed too far. This, is pushing them too far.
Thank you
I support meta allowing freedom of speech regarding factual statements. A member of the male sex does not belong in a woman’s restroom, locker room, or anywhere else women deserve the right to privacy. Saying so should not be banned. A member of the male sex should not be competing against members of the female sex unless it is a co-ed team. Women and girls have the right to fair competition. Expressing this is not hate speech, it is common sense. Sex is real. Gender is subjective thoughts.
Only using the sex that a person prefers in language (ie. MTF being referred to as she/her only) is giving the impression to children that you can actually successfully change your biological sex.
This in turn is contributing to self harm and suicide rates of youth as this isn't an achievable goal unfortunately. Although many can undergo 'reassignment' surgery this has a very high rate of complications and Mental health issues as the portrayals on social media show them an unattainable reality.
The publication of the CASS Report in the UK has shown how damaging that this has been for the UK's youth and in time this will be seen as a chronic medical scandal.
If you prevent people from speaking a basic truth, that people are unfortunately the sex that they are born, a generation could grow up fully under this illusion without adults having a public forum to challenge this belief and the results could be a generation of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual young adults that we lose young like the AIDS crisis to their own hands or medical complications. If born later, I would've been one of those kids as the social pressure on them to conform (medically make themselves heterosexual by attempting to change sex) instead of being gay is huge.
This is a unilateral attempt to press a specific political view on those of us who believe that biology matters. Being unable to say that a person who is biologically male is inhabitting women's spaces, many of which are necessary for our safety, and referring to that person as he, is necessary to tell the TRUTH. If this goes through I will definitely close all accounts I have with META. As a person who is only interested in spaces for women, and believes only biological women can be lesbians, I want to know when a male-bodied person is attempting to enter them.
Describing an individual by their biological sex is never hate speech, even if it conflicts at a particular point in time with the gender identity of that individual. Not only is it not hate speech, describing an individual by their biological sex is an important part of free speech. Describing an individual by their biological sex may also be vital for accurate data collection, decision making, and the health and safety of the individual and all the other people interacting with them. Females are seriously impacted and often threatened by men who identify as women, and being able to accurately describe a person whose gender identity is in opposition to their biology is vital for female well being.
Please use some common sense for once and stop thinking you have the power to defeat constitutional rights to suppress FACTS that you construe as ideas with which you disagree because it doesn't serve your agenda. You're a disgrace to media. Do the right thing for once instead of thinking you are part of a totalitarian regime.
I am quite angry that you intend to ban people for saying what is actually true. Trans "women" are men. Every cell in their body is male. There is nothing you can do about it. You absolutely have NO BUSINESS forcing people to say what they know is not true! That is so facist!
If you do this I will quit Facebook and encourage everyone I know to do the same.
Why should the rights of a miniscule percentage of genetic men, choosing to appropriate the outward appearance of women, take precedence over the rights of genetic women, who constitute half the world's total population. There has been no consideration of the pivotal role played by Autogynophilia in the motivation of these genetic men self identifying as women & seeking entry to designated private women-only spaces. The physical safety & dignity of genetic women has been put at risk of harm by the threatening physicality of masculine bodies...fully grown men with identity & sexuality related psychological health problems. The real world implications of violence against genetic women has been traded off against placating the feelings of a transgender minority group. True genetic women's rights in the modern western world have never been in greater jeopardy than now, with all these new laws of self identification privileging the few over the majority. When only rightwing politicians like Trump are brave enough to publicly stand up for biological women's rights to safe spaces, we have lost touch with the foundational democratic values of our modern egalitarian society, that all western economies are based upon...equal rights for women to participate in the public sphere has now been compromised. These new laws which entitle a minority of genetic men undermine women's equal & safe participation in community life, including online & will even negatively impact the workplace. These new laws undercut biological women's sporting achievements by interjecting genetic men into women's teams. By now many women athletes have publicly complained about the unfairness of allowing genetic men to take away the top tier prizes in women's sports competitions. Then there is the privacy & safety concerns of allowing these same sorts of genetic men to enter into women's changing rooms, restrooms, women's domestic violence shelters & other places which were designed to be physically seperate, safe spaces free of male violence & intrusion. The true hate speech is that which already exists against biological women, not even being able to be a legally defined category, exclusionary of all male persons. Don't conflate the current misgendering campaign with real world misogyny evident by the fact women are currently denied a legal definition & status seperate from genetic males.
Respectfully, it is not hate speech or bullying to speak truths in basic biology. Biological women and biological men are different. A person who identifies as a trans woman has a mental disorder and should be treated with compassion and understanding but should not be enabled to use women’s locker rooms, women’s prisons, and compete in women’s sports. Who is protecting them?
I received an email from Women's Liberation Front claiming that Meta was proposing to treat "misgendering" as bullying or hate speech. Having read your "about the case," it appears the Board has not actually made a decision one way or the other.
I feel that trans-identifying people are generally entitled to the same respect as other people. I disapprove of mocking them, and I support Meta as it attempts to find appropriate policies to discourage such mockery.
On the other hand, the belief that people can actually change sex is just that, a belief, with only questionable scientific support. There are currently no agreed-upon criteria as to when a person who chooses to live as other than their natal sex should be treated as such.
Self-identification will not do, because, as in many other areas of life, people have been known to lie to obtain benefits to which they would not normally be entitled. For instance, a man in prison might pretend to have "discovered" that he is actually a woman in order to be transferred to a women's prison. An athlete might pretend to be trans to enhance his chances of winning valuable monetary prizes. A man might pretend to be trans to gain admittance to women's spaces to engage in exhibitionism or voyeurism.
I believe such cases to be unusual, but they are legitimate subjects of public debate. The intent of such debate is to influence public policy, not to shame or vilify individuals. Therefore, I agree with Meta's current approach, as exemplified by the two videos in question.
Apparently the minor athlete in the second video did not complain to Meta, and we do not know if they suffered any social repercussions from it. If that is a concern, Meta might consider a requirement to obscure the identity of minors shown in controversial videos, rather than preventing debate.
Gender matters. My biology has not just made my life extremely different- it is my life. For someone to pretend to have my gender is hate speech. Someone who was born in a different body decides that somehow biology is wrong and has the crazy notion that everyone should recognize whatever gender they declare is not sane or reasonable. It is also deeply disturbing to people who are that gender. We are born in our bodies and deal with the physical and social influences that are life-changing. Someone who declares their gender is hurtful, malicious and violation my rights as person. I have a feeling that Meta wouldn't allow someone who has light skin to declare that they are black and be insulted if someone questions it. This is an actual fact of life for one person in this country who strongly identifies as back even though she is not. Everyone universally abhors her and keeps her from working or living anywhere. Yet it is alright for someone on your platform to pretend to be another gender. In the face of the known physical differences and in the historical significance and in the social significance of being a woman in particular, it is deeply disturbing that your platform would take the stance that biology is wrong and that it is okay to represent yourself as something that you are not.
On Meta/Facebook, I have encountered many "people" who pretend to be something they are not. When someone speaks as if they represent a group when they do not; that is hurtful, disrespectful and it takes away our voices- our real voices. I ask you to allow us to represent ourselves truly, as who we are. If someone pretends to be a man and they are actually a woman, if someone represents themselves as Native American when they are not, when someone pretends to be disabled when they are not; that is fraud. Please allow people to civilly communicate and if someone is misrepresenting themselves, people should be able to point that out, politely and persistently as needed. The reason for that is to allow the real people who represent that group to have their voice.
Hello, I am a woman who is concerned about this gender identity proposal. I believe strongly in freedom of gender expression for transgender people and that transgender people deserve to be free from discrimination. However, we also need to respect freedom of speech and women's rights, and a proposal to consider referencing a transgender person's birth sex "hate speech" is anti-free speech and anti-women's rights.
Every human being has a sex. Mammals cannot change sex, and humans are mammals. For 99.9% of humans, sex is unambiguous and observed at birth. This includes the majority of transgender people. Referring to a biological aspect of another human being should never be considered hate speech. You can respect a transgender person's gender identity while recognizing that they cannot change their sex.
If we cannot talk about sex, there are serious issues. It is confusing to minors, who may believe that gender transition can literally change their sex. This is especially confusing to autistic minors, and as an autistic woman who was an autistic girl, I know I would have been confused by the idea I could have changed sex.
It is confusing when we talk about contentious policy issues. We cannot talk about transgender participation in sports without bringing up sex differences in muscle strength, height, and other issues. If we cannot talk about sex, then we cannot talk about why women's sports were created and why they matter and deserve to be defended.
If we cannot talk about sex, we cannot talk about why sex segregation may be important at times to protect women, the sex capable of being impregnated, from men, the sex that is physically stronger and capable of impregnated.
If we cannot talk about sex, then women who have been raped who want to identify their assailant as part of male violence will be harassed and silenced as "hate speech." It is not hate speech to identify that male violence exists and it can affect you personally, and that it can happen even if you have a transgender identity. Inability to name their rapist silences women who have been raped by transgender people who were assigned male at birth.
Rules against mentioning someone's sex disproportionately affect women, and can be weaponized against women by organized bullies and harassment campaigns. Social media already has a problem as a sexist space that is hostile to women. This would only make it worse.
Finally, on free speech grounds, while I respect transgender people's gender identities, gender identity science is fast evolving and it can only evolve if there is free and open discussion about gender identity and sex. People have a right to mention someone else's sex where it is relevant. Not everyone agrees on what gender is and the people with alternative views deserve to express their arguments. The audience deserves to hear those arguments so that they can change their minds if they are convinced, or to strengthen their beliefs if they are not. If you prevent people from hearing arguments about gender and birth sex on the grounds that it is "hate speech", you rob science, philosophy, and the public the opportunity to hear non-hateful arguments that could move society to a more informed place.
As such, I am strongly against mentioning someone's birth sex ("misgendering") to be hate speech, on the grounds of it being misleading to minors, harmful to women's rights, and harmful to freedom of expression.