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On January 7, Meta announced the changes made in its moderation policies, including ending its fact-checking partnerships. In addition, the information technology giant updated its hateful conduct policies, increasing the types of content that can be posted by users, effective immediately.
For instance, as reported by CNN on January 8, women can now be referred to as "household objects or property” and people can be labeled with “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or s*xual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homos*xuality.” Additionally, transgender or non-binary people can also be referred to as "it."
In his blog post highlighting the newly made changes, Meta's chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan wrote:
“It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms.”
CEO Mark Zuckerberg opined that the company's current regulation policies are “just out of touch with mainstream discourse.”
Exploring the major changes in Meta's content moderation policies
Meta recently updated its Community Guidelines, releasing an extensive set of rules that will be used to judge the kind of content posted across platforms like Instagram, Threads, and Facebook. Some of the most curious changes happened in the Hateful Conduct policy that covers discourses on topics like immigration, gender, and the like.
As per Wired, the major changes include removing restrictions on posting targeted language-based content based on a person's "protected characteristics" like race, gender identity, and ethnicity when they are combined with “claims that they have or spread the coronavirus.”
Another addition to their Community Guidelines includes permitting content that contains “gender-based limitations of military, law enforcement, and teaching jobs." The platform will also allow the same arguments based on s*xual orientation when the subject is based on religious beliefs.
A major update states that Meta will allow conversations that contain social exclusions if other guidelines are followed. According to Meta's new guidelines, “people sometimes use s*x- or gender-exclusive language when discussing access to spaces often limited by s*x or gender, such as access to bathrooms, specific schools, specific military, law enforcement, or teaching roles, and health or support groups."
However, the liberty to engage in a socially exclusive conversation was only permitted for health and support groups before the update.
The updates have also preserved many of the exclusions stated in the previous guidelines of Meta. For instance, conversations based on Holocaust denials, blackface, alluding that Jewish people control the media, and comparing people of color with "farm equipment" remain prohibited even after the update.
The company hasn't made any tweaks to its list of "protected characteristics" like race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, s*xual orientation, s*x, gender identity, and serious disease.
It has also maintained its policy of protecting immigrants, migrants, and asylum-seekers from being targeted with content based on their immigrant status and protected characteristics.
The platform has maintained its ban on calling immigrants or people in the "protected characteristic" groups names like insects, pathogens, or other "other sub-human life forms." Posts likening them to criminals are also banned.
Meta has also removed the opening line of its previous versions of the Hateful Conduct Policy. Since 2019, the Hateful Conduct policy opened by noting that hateful speech may "promote offline violence." That line has been removed in the latest update.
"I think they’ve come a long way"— President-elect Donald Trump welcomes the Meta's updated Community Guidelines
President-elect Donald Trump lavished praise on Meta's updated Community Guidelines after it was announced that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Threads will get rid of fact-checkers. On Tuesday, he commented on the update in response to a question from CNN's Steve Contorno at Mar-a-Lago:
“I watched their news conference, and I thought it was a very good news conference. I think they’ve, honestly, I think they’ve come a long way. Meta. Facebook. I think they’ve come a long way. I watched it, the man was very impressive.”
In response, Contorno asked if the changes were made in direct response to the threats made to Mark Zuckerberg by Trump in the past.
"Probably. Yeah, probably," said the 78-year-old.
In November 2024, Donald Trump defeated Democrat supremo Kamala Harris to become the 47th President of the United States of America. Trump was also nominated TIME's 2024 Person of the Year last year.
