The change coincides with the company's shock announcement on Tuesday that it was ending its third-party fact-checking program in the United States and adopting a crowd-sourced model to police misinformation similar to the Elon Musk-owned X.
The latest version of Meta's community guidelines said its platforms -- which include Facebook and Instagram -- would now permit users to accuse people of "mental illness or abnormality" based on their gender or sexual orientation.
The updated version also struck out previous restrictions on referring to women as "household objects or property," Black people as "farm equipment" and transgender or non-binary people as "it."
"We're getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate," Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer, wrote in a blog post.
"It's not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms."
But advocacy groups quickly voiced concern that the policy shift threatened the safety of marginalized communities.
"Removal of fact-checking programs and industry-standard hate speech policies make Meta's platforms unsafe places," said Sarah Kate Ellis, president of the advocacy group GLAAD.
"Without these necessary hate speech and other policies, Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanizing narratives."
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, in a video announcing the changes, claimed the previous restrictions on immigration and gender were "just out of touch with mainstream discourse."
"What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it has gone too far," Zuckerberg said.
The move comes just weeks before Donald Trump returns to the White House with his Republican Party also back in control of Congress after fiercely attacking social media speech restrictions during the election campaign.
Gender identity issues were also a key line of attack by Trump and Republicans against their Democratic opponents.
After the move was announced on Tuesday, CyberWell, a nonprofit focused on combating online antisemitism, denounced the "systematic lowering of the bar" by Meta on policies against hate speech and harassment.
"This change particularly undermines the safety of all marginalized communities," CyberWell executive director Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor said in a statement.
Australia frets over Meta halt to US fact-checking
Sydney (AFP) Jan 9, 2025 -
Australia is deeply concerned by Meta's decision to scrap US fact-check operations on its Facebook and Instagram platforms, a senior minister said Thursday.
The government -- which has been at the forefront of efforts to rein in social media giants -- was worried about a surge of false information spreading online, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.
"Misinformation and disinformation is very dangerous, and we've seen it really kind of explode in the last few years," Chalmers told national broadcaster ABC.
"And it's a very damaging development, damaging for our democracy. It can be damaging for people's mental health to get the wrong information on social media, and so of course we are concerned about that."
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday the group would "get rid of fact-checkers" and replace them with community-based posts, starting in the United States.
Chalmers said the decision was "very concerning".
The government had invested in trusted Australian news providers such as the ABC and national newswire AAP to ensure people had reliable sources for information, he said.
Disinformation and misinformation had become "a bigger and bigger part of our media, particularly our social media", the treasurer said.
- Social media restrictions -
Australia has frequently irked social media giants, notably Elon Musk's X, with its efforts to restrict the distribution of false information or content it deems dangerous.
Late last year, the country passed laws to ban under-16s from signing up for social media platforms. Offenders face fines of up to Aus$50 million (US$32.5 million) for "systemic breaches".
But in November, a lack of support in parliament forced the government to ditch plans to fine social media companies if they fail to stem the spread of misinformation.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday he stood by the ban on children's access to social media because of the impact it had on their mental health.
Asked about Meta's fact-checking retreat, Albanese told reporters: "I say to social media they have a social responsibility and they should fulfil it."
Australian group Digital Rights Watch said Meta had made a "terrible decision", accusing it of acting in clear deference to incoming US president Donald Trump.
AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook's fact-checking programme.
Facebook pays to use fact checks from around 80 organisations globally on the platform, as well as on WhatsApp and Instagram.
Australian fact-checking operation AAP FactCheck said its contract with Meta in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific was not impacted by the group's US decision.
"Independent fact-checkers are a vital safeguard against the spread of harmful misinformation and disinformation that threatens to undermine free democratic debate in Australia and aims to manipulate public opinion," said AAP chief executive Lisa Davies.
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Democracy in the 21st century at TerraDaily.com
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