The changes in content moderation and verification introduced by Mark Zuckerberg on all Meta social networks – Facebook, Instagram and Threads – have led to, among others, the elimination of the concept ‘hate speech’ and the acceptance, among others insults, of “accusations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation.”
To justify these changes, reflected in the new update of the “Hateful conduct” section of the Meta Community Standardsthe company hides behind the use of these terms in the “political and religious discourse on transsexuality and homosexuality.” “People also sometimes express gender- or sex-exclusive language when talking about access to spaces that are often limited by sex or gender, such as access to bathrooms, specific schools, specific military, police, or teaching functions, and health or support groups. Other times, they ask for exclusion or use insulting language in the context of discussing political or religious topics, such as when talking about transgender rights, immigration, or homosexuality. Finally, sometimes people insult a gender in the context of a romantic breakup. “Our policies are designed to allow space for this type of speech,” Meta adds in the changes.
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Meta’s new considerations on so-called “hateful conduct” have made it possible to eliminate the prohibition on generalizing an insult or disqualification to an entire community. Before the changes, Meta did not allow publishing “dehumanizing speech in the form of comparisons or generalizations” such as “saying All [característica protegida o característica cuasi protegida] They are ‘criminals’”. However, now it is possible.
In a statement shared on Monday, Director of Global Affairs Joel Kaplan alleged that in recent years they have developed “complex systems to manage content on our platforms, which are becoming increasingly complicated to apply.”
“It is not right that things can be said on television or in the plenary session of Congress, but not on our platforms.”
“As a result, we have been over-enforcing our rules, limiting legitimate political debate, censoring too much trivial content, and subjecting too many people to frustrating enforcement actions,” he adds.
According to Kaplan, to address this situation, they have decided to “eliminate a series of restrictions on topics such as immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political speeches and debates,” because “it is not right that things can be said on television or in the plenary session of Congress, but not on our platforms.”
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These changes mean, for example, that moderation measures will no longer focus so much on hate speech but on hate behavior, the platform notes. From now on, they will admit insults or expressions of hate when they are used with a “clear intention” to “condemn the speech or denounce it,” and will stop eliminating, within dehumanizing speech, “declarations of inferiority, expressions of contempt or disgust; abuse; and calls for exclusion or segregation.”
Among other changes, Meta eliminates the ban on insults about intellectual capacity (dumb, stupid, idiot), education (illiterate, uneducated), mental health (mentally ill, mentally retarded, crazy, insane), relative moral characteristics to character traits culturally perceived as negative (coward, liar, arrogant, ignorant) and derogatory terms related to sexual activity (whore, slut, perverts).
A Facebook without content verification
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has defended changes to the moderation system, which involve verification of content by the community rather than independent experts, and changes to its policies, saying they will make its platforms “better.” ”.
Currently, third-party verifiers review user posts and rate them for accuracy. However, Zuckerberg believes that “community notes will be more effective than fact checkers,” as he defended in a post on Threads.
Mark Zuckerberg
Specifically, the manager has argued that “it is good to reduce the number of people whose accounts are banned by mistake” and that “people want to be able to discuss civic issues and make arguments that are in the mainstream of political discourse, etc.”
He is also aware that these changes will lead some people to abandon their social networks, but he believes that “the vast majority and many new users will find that these changes make the products better.”
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