Meta modifies its nudity policy to allow transsexuals to show their breasts
Facebook and Instagram, the company's platforms, will lift censorship for trans and non-binary users but not for real women.
The Meta Oversight Board, an external body that oversees content moderation on Facebook and Instagram, recommended that transgender women and users who qualify as non-binary be allowed to show their breasts on the social media platforms.
Since these networks began to operate, if a biological woman were to post a revealing image, she would have had this part of her body censored. Now women will have to put up with continued censorship against them but not against transsexuals who want to show their breasts.
In a statement, the company's Supervisory Board explained that:
The board in charge of censorship also explains that there are other exceptions related to female nipples "based on contexts of protest, childbirth, postpartum and breastfeeding."
The Supervisory Board, composed of academics, journalists and politicians, also criticized the company's previous approach to branding images of breasts because it reflected an outdated view of gender and sex. The organization is particularly concerned about any act of censorship affecting the LGBT community:
The Guardian reported that the Supervisory Board's decision comes after Facebook censored two posts from an account of a transgender, non-binary American couple. The posts showed the couple posing topless, but with their nipples covered, with captions depicting trans healthcare and fundraising for cosmetic surgery.
Meta believes that it should strive to develop and implement policies to solve all these problems. It must change its approach to nudity control on its platforms by defining clear criteria for adult nudity and sexual activity policies that ensure that all users are treated in a manner consistent with human rights standards. It should also assess whether the policy on adult nudity and sexual activity protects against the spread of these images without consent and whether there are other policies that should be strengthened in this regard.