meta announced Today its content moderation policies included a series of major updates, including eliminating fact-checking partnership and “getting rid of” restrictions on speech about “topics like immigration, gender identity and sex” which the company describes as frequent topics of political discourse and debate. Meta's newly appointed chief global affairs officer said, “It is not right that things can be said on TV or on the floor of Congress, but not on our platform.” Joel Kaplan written in a blog post Outline of changes.
In an accompanying video, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the company's current rules in these areas as “completely out of touch with mainstream discourse.”
With this announcement, the company made several updates to its Community Guidelines, a comprehensive set of rules that outline what type of content is prohibited on Meta's platforms, including Instagram, Threads, and Facebook. Some of the most important changes were made to the meta's “disgusting conductPolicy, which covers discussions on immigration and gender.
In a notable change, the company now says it “allows allegations of mental illness or abnormality based on gender or sexual orientation, political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality, and general non-acceptance of words like 'weird'.” Considering serious use.”
In other words, Meta now appears to allow users to accuse transgender or gay people of being mentally ill because of their gender expression and sexual orientation. The company did not respond to requests for clarification on the policy.
Meta spokesperson Corey Chambliss told WIRED that these restrictions will be eased globally. Asked whether the company would adopt different policies in countries with strict rules governing hate speech, Chambliss said sharp META's current guidelines address local laws.
Other significant changes to Meta's hateful conduct policy made Tuesday include:
- Removing language that prohibits content targeting people based on their “protected characteristics,” including race, ethnicity, and gender identity, when they are “combined with claims that they have or are spreading coronavirus.” Is.” Without this provision, for example, blaming the Chinese people for taking responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic may now be out of bounds.
- A new addition appears to be making room for people who want to post about how, for example, women should not be allowed to serve in the military or men should be allowed to serve in the military because of their gender. Should not be allowed to teach mathematics. Meta now allows content that “argues for gender-based limitations of military, law enforcement, and teaching jobs. We also allow content based on sexual orientation, the same as when content is based on religious beliefs.”
- Another update expands on what meta allows in conversations about social exclusion. It now states that “People sometimes use gender or gender-specific language when discussing access to places limited by gender, such as bathrooms, specific schools, specific military, law enforcement, or teaching roles. and access to health or support groups.” Previously, this framework was only available for discussion about limiting health and support groups to one gender.
- Meta's hateful conduct policy previously opened by noting that hate speech “can incite offline violence.” That sentence, which had been in the policy since 2019, has been removed from the updated version released Tuesday. (In 2018, following reports from human rights groups, Meta said accepted that its platform was used to incite violence against religious minorities in myanmar.) The update preserves language at the bottom of the policy prohibiting content that “may incite imminent violence or threats.”