Facebook and Instagram have been ordered to do away with their policies that ban the flashing of bare breasts amid claims the rules limit the free expression of women, transgender, and non-binary people, the NYPost reports.
However, women who were born female and who are eager to “free the nipple” are out of luck, according to Meta’s Oversight Board.
The board – an independent body of experts, which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called the firm’s “Supreme Court” for censorship policies and content moderation, ordered Facebook and Instagram to lift a ban on images of bare-chested women (for anyone who identifies as transgender or non-binary, meaning they don’t view themselves as male or female).
“The same image of female-presenting nipples would be prohibited if posted by a cisgender woman but permitted if posted by an individual self-identifying as non-binary,” the board noted in its decision.
A “cisgender” is an individual who identifies as the sex or gender they were assigned a birth.
The board cited a recent decision to reinstate two Instagram posts it took down from a couple that describes themselves as transgender and non-binary. They posed topless to discuss the effects of breast reduction or “top” surgery but covered their nipples – only to have the post flagged by other users.
Meta banned the photo, but the couple won their appeal, and the post was reinstated online.
The company will rely on “human reviewers” who’ll be given the responsibility of “quickly assessing both a user’s sex, as this policy applies to “female nipples” and their “gender identity,” the board said.
The demand comes in response to complaints that the old policy discriminated against gender-fluid users. A decade after, feminist campaigners coined the slogan “free the nipple” and called for equality in revealing male and female breasts.
The board added that there’ll be “additional nipple-related exceptions based on contexts of protest, birth-giving, after birth, and breastfeeding, which it didn’t examine here, but also must be assessed.”
“We welcome the board’s decision in this case,” a spokesperson for Meta informed the NYPost.
“We had reinstated this content prior to the decision, recognizing that it should not have been taken down. We are constantly evaluating our policies to help make our platforms safer for everyone.”
The spokesperson added:
“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.”
Facebook has, in years past, been accused of oversexualizing breasts. In 2013, the tech giant took down clips from a documentary dubbed “Free The Nipple” about the movement to allow for female toplessness in public.
There have also been protests arguing the policy – in 2019, 100 naked demonstrators gathered outside Facebook’s New York headquarters. Celebrities including Lena Dunham, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, and Rumer Willis have also previously been forced to remove their topless photos from Instagram.
Cara Delavigne, who at last year’s Met Gala took her jacket off to reveal gold body paint, made a statement about the freeing of nipples, saying, “The nipple needs to be free, and it’s still not, so they’re covered but not quite.”
Michel. R Huff, an LA-based attorney who was formerly a lesbian and who’s transitioned to being a man, argues that Meta’s new policy violates the Equal Protection Clause under the 14th Amendment.
“Cis women’s breasts have been sexualized. However, breasts are not sex objects. They are to feed children, the original purpose for breasts,” he told The Post.
“When balancing the interests of anyone’s equal rights against another’s potential lascivious outbursts, our individual rights and liberties must trump, or we face a slippery slope to diminishing other legal protections.”
