Meta may soon lift the ban on Facebook and Instagram posting photos with bare female breasts. The company’s advisory board says the restriction impedes the freedom of expression for women, transgender and non-binary people.
On January 17, the advisory board (a group of academics, politicians and journalists who advise Meta on content moderation) recommended that the company change its community standards for nude posting to be guided by clear criteria that meet international human rights standards.
The decision was preceded by censorship of the publication of a transgender and non-binary American couple: with a topless photo, but with covered nipples and a description about raising funds for surgery. Users complained about the publication, which was later deleted by Meta II. After the couple appealed the ban, the post was reinstated.
The advisory board notes that the policy “is based on a binary view of the floor and differentiates between the female and male bodies” (among other things, male breasts with nipples are allowed to appear on Facebook and Instagram), thereby making the rules “unclear” when it comes to intersex, non-binary and transgender users.
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As far back as the 2000s, activists have struggled to combat the sexualization of breasts, and in 2013 the #FreetheNipple campaign became mainstream after Facebook removed clips from a documentary by actress and director Lina Esco.
The campaign gained widespread support on college campuses and among celebrities (Rihanna, Miley Cyrus and Lena Dunham). Florence Pugh recently hit the red carpet in a sheer hot pink Valentino gown, saying:
“Of course I don’t want to offend people, but how could my nipples offend you?”
More than a decade ago, breastfeeding mothers first held a rally at Facebook headquarters in protest.
In 2015, Los Angeles-based artist Mikol Hevron created stickers of male nipples for Instagram users to place on top of theirs, mocking unfair politics.
Hebron was invited to Instagram headquarters in 2019 with a group of influencers to talk about the company’s nipple policy.
“We learned that there were no transgender people on the content moderation team, and there were no gender-neutral washrooms on the premises. That’s all it took to realize that conversations about gender and inclusivity aren’t happening at Meta,” Hevron said.
A Meta representative disputed Hebron’s characterization of the event, adding: “A lot has changed since 2019.”
The artist says that she is “excited” by the current decision of the advisory board:
“Apart from just ‘let women be topless’, which I’m not interested in at all, I think it’s really important to allow all bodies to have autonomy. For many people, it seems that talking about nipples is not serious. But think about how governments around the world are trying to control and suppress women’s, trans, or non-binary bodies.’
A Meta spokesperson said in a statement that “the company welcomes the board’s decision in this case”:
“We are constantly improving our policies to help make our platforms safer for everyone. We know we can do more to support the LGBTQ+ community, and that means working with LGBTQ+ experts and organizations on a range of issues and product improvements. “.
Meta has 60 days to publicly respond to the board’s recommendations. And while supporters of the #FreetheNipple movement are already cheering the decision, questions still remain about how automated content moderation systems will be able to enforce the new breast policy. Raising funds for a couple’s surgery is not about sexual content. But didn’t AI notice the difference at first? Then how will the systems be able to distinguish topless photos from porn content?
Jillian York, an activist and director of international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, added that it is “difficult” for companies using artificial intelligence to make the right decision in any case.
“For example, automated technology cannot easily determine who is a topless adult and who is a topless child. AI can tell the difference between a 9-year-old and a 26-year-old, but what about a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old?” she said.
In 2020, after a three-month public campaign, Instagram and Facebook already changed their rules on female nudity and allowed the publication of “content in which someone simply hugs, takes or holds their breasts”.
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Source: The Guardian
