If anyone wants the Oversight Commission to provide some sort of check on Meta’s rewrite of hate speech policy, Meta has just made its position clear. The company released a formal response to board criticism and refused to promise any substantial steps to change its rules.
The oversight committee previously criticized Meta’s January policy change as a “hurried announcement” and wrote that it was “concerned” about the company’s decision to use the term “transgenderism” in rewriting community standards. Mark Zuckerberg Shortly before President Donald Trump took office, a company policy announced by Mark Zuckerberg now allows people to claim that LGBTQ people are mentally ill.
The policy now states: “We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality In cases based on gender or sexual orientation, given the common no serious use of transgenderism and homosexuality and words such as ‘weird’.” In a decision related to two videos describing public harassment of transgender women, the Oversight Committee supported Meta’s decision to leave the video. But the board recommends that the meta-element remove the term “transgenderism” from its policy. “To make it legitimized, Meta must seek a neutral content policy,” the board said.
Human rights groups say the term has a long relationship with discrimination and dehumanization. The human rights movement noted that the term “is socially and scientifically ineffective” and “often wielded by anti-trans activists to empower trans people.” Glaad also points out that “constructing a person’s trans identity as a ‘concept’ or ‘ideology’ reduces the core identity to a debateable point of view, thus justifies dehumanization, discrimination and real-world rationality for trans, non-trans, non-elemental, non-healthy and gender-independent.”
Meta officials said in a formal response that they are still “evaluating” the feasibility of removing the word from their policies. The company said it would “consider the approach to updating the terminology,” but added: “To achieve clarity and transparency in our public interpretation may sometimes require languages that are considered offensive.”
Mehta also refused to make three other suggestions in the case. The Board recommends that META “determine how policy and enforcement updates can adversely affect the rights of LGBTQIA+ personnel, including minors, especially when these populations are at higher risk,” taking steps to mitigate these risks and sending regular reports on their work to the Board and the public.
It also recommends that META allow users to designate other people who can report bullying and harassment on their behalf, and that when people report bullying and harassment, the company makes improvements to reduce errors. Meta said it was “animation of the feasibility of these recommendations.”
Meta’s response raises a disturbing question of how much impact an independent oversight committee can have on the surface. Zuckerberg said Meta created an oversight committee so it doesn’t have to make corresponding policy decisions on its own. Previously, social networks have consulted the board for help with major decisions, such as the suspension of Donald Trump and its rules for celebrities and politicians. But Zuckerberg’s decision to back down on hate speech protection and abandon third-party fact-checks surprised the board.
Meta has been free to ignore the oversight committee’s recommendations, but it has enabled it to influence some of its more controversial policies. However, this seems to be changing. Zuckerberg’s decision to back down on hate speech protection and abandon third-party fact-checks surprised the board. Now, the company seems to have no interest in interacting with the board of directors’ criticism about these changes.
