Instagram and Facebook may finally ‘free the nipple’

Meta, the company behind social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, has been told by its own oversight board to overhaul its policy of banning bare-chested pictures of women and women only. This could be the win that the ‘free the nipple’ movement have been asking for for over a decade.

It starts with Meta’s own oversight board, a ‘Facebook Supreme Court’ of sorts created by Mark Zuckerberg back in 2018. The oversight board consists of academics, journalists and politicians who independently provide advice to the company on their content policies, but their latest one, dated 17 January, might be their most important yet in this matter.

This decision revolves around Facebook’s decision to censor two posts from an account by a couple who are transgender and non-binary. The couple were posing topless but covered their nipples, with the accompanying captions mentioning raising funds for surgery. However, these posts would be reported by users, and Facebook’s AI system proceeded to remove them. The couple later appealed the decision, and Facebook restored the posts in the end.

The Meta oversight board nevertheless looked into the matter, and would come to the conclusion that Meta’s content policies are based on a binary view of gender, with a clear distinction towards male and female bodies. As such, rules against nipples end up being in a grey area when it comes to transgender and non-binary users.

The oversight board would also recommend that Meta define a clear, objective, rights-respecting criteria when it comes to its adult nudity and sexual activity community standard so that it treats all of their users in a manner consistent with international human rights standards without discrimination on the basis of sex or gender. They also ask that Meta give more detail in their community standards on what criteria leads to users’ posts being removed, as well as revise their guidance for moderators so that there would be less enforcement errors by Meta.

Meta themselves would respond to their own oversight board, saying that they welcome the decision, and noted that they had already reinstated the couple’s posts prior to the decision anyway.

“We are constantly evolving our policies to help make our platforms safer for everyone. We know more can be done to support the LGBTQ+ community, and that means working with experts and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations on a range of issues and product improvements,” – Meta spokesperson

Meta will now have the next 60 days to make a public response to the oversight board.