Meta tells the Oversight Board it isn’t removing the word ‘transgenderism’ from its hate speech rules

If someone was waiting for the hope that the supervisory board would provide a kind of check on meta- Rewritten hate speech policyMeta has just specified exactly where he is. Business published His official response to the criticisms of the board of directors and refused to engage in any substantial step to modify his rules.

The supervisory board had previously criticized Meta’s policy changes like “hastily announced“And wrote that he was” concerned “by the company’s decision to use the term” transgender “in his rewritten Community standards. The company’s policy, announced by Mark Zuckerberg in January shortly before President Donald Trump came into office, now allows people to claim that LGBTQ people are mentally ill.

“We allow allegations of mental illness or anomalies when based on gender or sexual orientation, given the political and religious discourse on transgender and homosexuality and the non -serious common use of words such as” bizarre “, now indicates politics. In a decision related to two videos representing the public harassment of transgender women, the assistance council had taken the side of the meta on its decision to leave the videos. But the advice recommended that META remove the word “transgender” from its policy. “For its rules to have legitimacy, Meta must seek to develop its content policies in a neutral manner,” said the board of directors.

The word has a long association with discrimination and dehumanization, have declared human rights groups. Human rights campaign note that the term is “socially and scientifically invalid” and “often exercised by anti-trans-trans to delegitimize transgender people”. Glaad also note The fact that “frame the transgender identity of a person as a” concept “or” ideology “reduces a central identity to an opinion that can be debated, and therefore justifies dehumanization, discrimination and real violence against transgender, non -binary and non -compliant people.

In his formal response, the responsible meta said they “always evaluated the feasibility” to withdraw the word from its policies. The company said that it “would consider means to update terminology”, but has added that “the clarity and transparency of our public explanations can sometimes require, including the language considered to be offensive for some”.

Meta also refused to engage in the three other recommendations of the board of directors in the case. The Council had recommended “identifying how the policy and application updates can have a negative impact on the rights of LGBTQIA +persons, including minors, in particular when these populations are at increased risks”, take measures to mitigate these risks and publish regular reports to the board of directors and to the public on its work.

He also recommended that Meta allowed users to designate other people who are able to report intimidation and harassment on their behalf, and that the company makes improvements to reduce errors when people signal intimidation and harassment. Meta said he “assessed the feasibility” of these suggestions.

Meta’s answer raises uncomfortable questions about the amount of influence of the ostensibly independent supervisory board. Zuckerberg said Meta had created the supervisory board so that he did not have significant political decisions in itself. Previously, the social network asked for help from the board of directors in major decisions, such as the suspension of Donald Trump and his rules for celebrities and politicians. But Zuckerberg’s decision to reduce the protections of hatred speeches and drop the verification of third -party facts took the board of directors by surprise.

Meta has always been free to ignore the recommendations of the supervisory board, but it has enabled it to influence some of its most controversial policies. However, it seems to change. Zuckerberg’s decision to retreat the speech protections of hatred and to drop the verification of third -party facts took the board of directors by surprise. And the company now seems to have little interest in engaging with the criticisms of the board of directors with regard to these changes.