Can Facebookâs community standards be used to drive transphobic content away? The rules are promising. Anything transphobic may fit under prohibited hate speech, defined as âa direct attack against people on the basis of what we [and British law] call protected characteristicsâ including gender identity. âWe define attacks as violent or dehumanising speech, harmful stereotypes, statements of inferiority, expressions of contempt, disgust or dismissal, cursing and calls for exclusion or segregation.â
The heart of the anti-trans campaign is calls for exclusion of trans women from women’s spaces.
There are long lists of what is dehumanising, including generalisations or comparisons to insects, animals, filth, sexual predators, subhumans or criminals.
âStatements denying existenceâ are forbidden, which arguably includes suggestions that people transition on a whim, such as, âhe wakes up one morning and declares heâs a womanâ. Referring to trans or nonbinary people as âitâ is specifically forbidden.
Calling us mentally ill is forbidden. Alleging âMoral deficiencyâ is forbidden, including calling us perverts, so mentioning âautogynephiliaâ should be forbidden. Statements of our inferiority, such as calling us freaks, abnormal, or worthless. Expressions of contempt, or admission of intolerance, is forbidden. Denying that the protected characteristic should exist. Expressions of contempt, hatred or disgust. Cursing and profane terms are forbidden.
Demands that we be segregated or excluded are forbidden. Facebook does not specify that excluding trans women from womenâs spaces counts, but arguably it should. Advocating political, economic or social exclusion is forbidden, including âdenying access to spaces (physical and online) and social servicesâ. Slurs, âdefined as words that are inherently offensive and used as insulting labels for the above-listed characteristicsâ, are forbidden.
Heading 16, âCruel and insensitiveâ, may also be relevant. It forbids mocking âvictims of serious physical and emotional harmâ, which could include transphobia, internalised or external.
Facebook refers us on to this essay on hate speech by Richard Allan. It is a balance. They want to encourage self-expression, but have rules against bullying. Attacks on social groups, including trans people, are hate speech. Context matters.
Facebook profits from âlanguage designed to provoke strong feelings, making the discussion more heatedâ because it drives engagement. They believe in âharmless use casesâ. In the context of immigration, Allan writes âwe donât want to stifle important policy conversationsâ, and that could be a defence for transphobes, arguing that trans woman access to womanâs space is a policy debate. So the hatred has to be something more than that.
Trans people can quote hate speech in order to argue against it, and reclaim slurs: I can call myself a tranny but no-one else can. There is a thin line between expressive opinion and unacceptable hate speech, and AI canât define it, so users should report it to moderators.
Facebook is an American company with American cultural values, including commitment to free speech: âThe goal of our Community Standards has always been to create a place for expression and give people a voice.â However on the same page they say they want content to be âauthenticâ- âwe don’t want people using Facebook to misrepresent who they are or what they’re doingâ. So, anti-trans campaigners often pretend to be womenâs rights campaigners, or lesbian rights campaigners, when what they seek is trans exclusion. This is not authentic. Hate speech fits under their principle of Dignity: âWe expect that people will respect the dignity of others and not harass or degrade others.â
So what happens when the anti-trans campaigners breach the community standards? Trans people and allies have to complain. And while groups and pages breach the community standards, complaints are restricted to particular content on groups. You can, however, report a page.
I want to see how this works. I see a hateful picture: it has the words âhuman beings cannot change sex and the law should not pretend that they canâ. I click the three dots, then âfind support or report photoâ. I click âHate speechâ, then âSex or gender identityâ, then âNextâ.
It asks, âDoes the post go against our Community Standards on hate speech?â I click Yes, then Next. Unfortunately, it does not allow me to explain how it does that.
On the page itself, I click the three dots, then, again, âHate speechâ, âNextâ, âReport pageâ, âDoneâ. Again, I cannot give reasons. It suggests I can block the page, so stop seeing it, but I donât want to: instead, I want to prevent other people from seeing it: trans people, who might be hurt by it, and potential haters, who might be radicalised by it, or confirmed haters, who might share its rubbish.
Facebook claimed to have âtaken actionâ on 22.1m pieces of hate speech content in three months, which means removing it, covering it with a warning, disabling accounts, or reporting it to agencies. They say that out of every 10,000 content views, 10-11 included hate speech.
After an hour, I got a message to say that the page did not go against any specific community standard, so would not be removed, but suggesting I block it. So far, so useless, and no opportunity to put the case that it is transphobic hate. Possibly the most extreme hate might occasionally be deleted, but not this, which campaigns to take away trans rights and pretends trans people do not exist.
---
Unfortunately, the implementation does not live up to this promise. I reported an image, and have not heard back. Then I reported a comment- transphobia whited out on my site, not all text-readers will- ââTrans womenâ can be males with gender dysphoria but a huge majority are males with autogynephilia, which is a male sexual fetish based on being validated as their idea of woman.â This is a lie, and also a âderogatory term related to sexual activityâ, so banned. But the response is,
we reviewed the comment that you reported and found that it doesn’t go against any of our Community Standards⌠we understand that you don’t like it. We recommend that you hide the comment or unfollow, unfriend or block the person who posted it.
This is completely useless. Hate and lies about trans people spread across facebook uncontrolled.