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Topline
Meta’s oversight board criticized the company’s updated hateful conduct policies, which included a provision allowing users to describe LGBTQ people as mentally ill, among other controversial updates, urging the company to assess the “human rights impact” of the policy on LGBTQ people, minors and immigrants.
Key Facts
The Meta oversight board, which makes company decisions and conducts mediations and is sometimes referred to as Meta’s “Supreme Court,” issued a response to Meta’s hateful conduct policy change Wednesday, criticizing the update as “hastily” made.
Meta’s hateful conduct policy was updated “in a departure from regular procedure, with no public information shared as to what, if any, prior human rights due diligence the company performed,” the oversight board said.
The oversight board called on Meta to assess whether its updated hateful conduct policy would pose a threat to human rights, demanding the company provide a public report.
The oversight board also urged Meta to assess the effectiveness of its “community notes” policy, which it had adopted after abandoning third-party fact checking.
A Meta spokesperson told Forbes the company “respond to their full recommendations within 60 days in accordance with the bylaws.”
How Did Meta Update Its Hateful Conduct Policy?
Meta announced sweeping changes to its hateful conduct policy and other content moderation standards on Jan. 7, which it billed as an attempt to improve free speech and reduce censorship on its social media platforms. The policy changes included renaming the “hate speech” policy to “hateful conduct,” and according to the policy’s change log on the Meta website, many references to specific examples of hateful conduct were erased, while other controversial examples were added. Among the updated policy changes is a provision that clarifies: “We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’” Under a section barring dehumanizing speech, Meta erased a previous provision that had prohibited people from evoking offensive stereotypes, including referring to “women as household objects or property or objects in general” and “transgender or non-binary people as ‘it.’” Meta also abandoned its third-party fact-checking program in favor of a community notes program like that on X, stating it would be “less prone to bias.”
Why Were Meta’s Conduct Policy Updates Controversial?
Meta’s updated policies drew scrutiny and allegations it would lead to increased discrimination against LGBTQ people, women and people of color. The Human Rights Campaign said these policy changes “create fertile ground for misinformation, identity-based harassment, and abuse, and threaten LGBTQ+ inclusion and safety across Meta,” accusing the company of taking “specific aim at LGBTQ+ people.”
How Did Mark Zuckerberg Defend Meta’s Policy Updates?
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had defended Meta’s content moderation policy updates as a move to improve free speech, particularly during a high-profile appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, which has more than 9 million views on Rogan’s YouTube channel. Zuckerberg said Facebook’s fact-checking policy was like “something out of 1984,” stating people felt the fact-checkers were too biased. “It really is a slippery slope, and it just got to a point where it’s just, OK, this is destroying so much trust, especially in the United States, to have this program,” praising Elon Musk’s X for adopting a community notes program in place of fact-checking. Zuckerberg said cracking down on hate speech “got to this point where there were things that you couldn’t say which were mainstream discourse,” citing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s prior statement that women should not serve in certain combat roles, stating this type of speech should be allowed on social media if Hegseth could say it on the floor of Congress. Zuckerberg also said in the Rogan interview companies should adopt more “masculine” energy and accused former President Joe Biden’s administration of calling Meta to “scream” about monitoring Covid-19-related posts.
Further Reading
Revisions of ‘hateful conduct’: what users can now say on Meta platforms (The Guardian)
Zuckerberg on Rogan: Facebook’s censorship was “something out of 1984” (Axios)
