Facebook and Instagram, after a decade of bans, will revisit policies that condemn images of bare breasts, amid allegations that the rules limit the free expression of women and transgender people.
Meta's Oversight Board, a panel of academics that reviews its moderation decisions, ruled that the company should reinstate two posts that it found no obscenity.
The oversight board's decision follows a controversy that had its epicenter on Facebook.
The social network censored two posts from an account run by a
transgender and non-binary American couple.
The photo showed the couple posing topless but with their nipples covered, with captions describing healthcare for trans people and fundraising for cosmetic surgery.
Demonstrations against the ban on Facebook.
AFP photo
Some users reported this post, which was reviewed and removed by an artificial intelligence system.
After the couple appealed the decision, Meta determined to
restore the photo
.
The board determined that "the policy is based on a gender binary and a distinction between male and female bodies," making the rules against displaying nipples "unclear" when it comes to intersex users. , non-binary and transgender.
In this sense, he recommended that Meta "define clear, objective and rights-respecting criteria" when it comes to moderating nudity "so that all people are treated in accordance with international human rights standards."
Although Meta is required to reset blocked posts, Meta is
not required
to follow all of the oversight agency's recommendations and may choose to ignore them.
“We welcome the board's decision in this case.
Prior to the decision we had reinstated this content, acknowledging that it should not have been removed.
We are constantly evaluating our policies to help make our platforms safer for everyone,” a spokesperson said.
no nudity in sight
At the moment, only photos of breastfeeding women are allowed.
Meta's policy on adult nudity prevents the display of female nipples except in a number of specific cases.
Among them are women who breastfeed or people having photos of a gender reaffirmation operation.
The lawsuit comes a decade after feminist activists coined the slogan Free The Nipple and called for equal standards when it comes to revealing male and female breasts.
Protests arguing against the policy have included more than 100 nude protesters who gathered outside Facebook's New York headquarters in 2019, and American artist Micol Hebron created nipple stickers of men for women to wear to cover yours in the photos.
“To many people it seems frivolous to talk about nipples, but if you think about the ways in which governments around the world try to control and suppress female identity bodies, trans bodies or non-binary bodies, it is not,” Hebron noted.
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