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Meta decides that ‘misgendering’ does not violate hate speech rules

The decision comes months after Zuckerberg announced new policies centering on free expression, in which he said that the company would decrease their suppression of political and cultural content.

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Zuckerberg vowed that Meta would remove restrictions on discussing controversial issues like “immigration and gender,” saying the rules are “just out of touch with mainstream discourse.” File Image.

Meta revealed that their Oversight Board reviewed multiple posts that “misgender” people claiming to be members of the other sex, concluding that the posts are allowed on the platform, while removing other posts that they asserted were discriminatory against migrants in Europe.

 

The entity, which makes content moderation decisions for Meta, revealed that a majority of members agreed that the social media behemoth could “allow two posts discussing transgender peoples’ access to bathrooms and participation in athletic events in the United States.”

 

 

“Despite the intentionally provocative nature of the posts, which misgender identifiable trans people in ways many would find offensive, a majority of the board found they related to matters of public concern and would not incite likely and imminent violence or discrimination,” they said.

 

The decision comes months after Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced new policies centering on free expression, in which he said that the company would implement a community notes system and decrease their suppression of political and cultural content.

 

Zuckerberg vowed that Meta would remove restrictions on discussing controversial issues like “immigration and gender,” saying the rules are “just out of touch with mainstream discourse.”

 

 

Beyond the cases about purported “misgendering,” members of the Oversight Board found that Meta should remove “two cases of anti-migrant speech from Poland and Germany” that included a “racist slur and generalizations of migrants as sexual predators.” The members claimed the posts added to “heightened risks of discrimination and violence against migrants.”

 

At the same time, the Oversight Board said that two posts “displaying images related to apartheid” should remain on the platform under international freedom of expression standards, since a removal would “not have been the least intrusive means to address harms.”

 

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