Content creators have long criticized Facebook and Instagram for their content moderation policies regarding photos showing partial nudity, arguing that their practices are inconsistent and often biased towards women and LGBTQ people.
This week, the oversight board of Meta, the platform’s parent company, strongly recommended that it clarify its policy on such photos after Instagram removed two posts that showed shirtless non-binary and transgender people.
The posts were quickly reinstated after the couple appealed, and Meta’s regulator reversed the original decision to remove them. It was the board’s first case directly involving gender-nonconforming users.
“The limitations and exceptions to the rules for female nipples are extensive and confusing, especially as they apply to transgender and non-binary people,” Meta’s oversight board said in his case summary on Tuesday. “The lack of clarity inherent in this guideline creates uncertainty for users and examiners and renders it unenforceable in practice.”
The issue arose when a transgender and non-binary couple posted photos of their bare breasts with covered nipples in 2021 and 2022 respectively. The captions included details about a fundraiser for one member of the couple to have top surgery, a gender-affirming procedure to flatten someone’s chest. Instagram removed the photos after other users reported them, saying their depiction of breasts hurt the Site’s Community Standard for Sexual Ads. The couple appealed the decision and the photos were subsequently recovered.
The couple’s back-and-forth with Instagram underscored criticism that the platform’s adult content policies were unclear. According to its community guidelinesInstagram blocks nude photos, but makes some exceptions for a number of content types, including posts raising mental health awareness, depictions of breastfeeding and other “health-related situations” — parameters that Meta’s board of directors called “muddled and ill-defined” in its summary.
How to decide what depictions of people’s breasts should be allowed on social media platforms? has long been the subject of debate. Numerous artists and activists claim that there is a double standard whereby posts of women’s breasts are more likely to be deleted than those of men. This also applies to transgender and non-binary people, advocates say.
Meta’s Board of Supervisors, a body of 22 academics, journalists and human rights defenders, is funded by Meta but operates independently of the company and makes binding decisions on its behalf. The group recommended that the platforms further clarify the community standard on adult nudity and sexual activity “so that all people are treated in accordance with international human rights standards, without discrimination based on gender or gender.”
It also called for “a comprehensive human rights impact assessment of such a change, involving various stakeholders and producing a plan to address any harm identified”.
Meta has 60 days to review the board’s summary, and a company spokesman said they would publicly respond to any of the board’s recommendations by mid-March.
