Facebook and Instagram advised to change the "confusing" policy on women's nipples

Instagram and Facebook may change their policies on nudity and female nipples after the Meta Supervisory Board called the current rules "confusing".

In a statement released this week, the board invited the platforms to amend their Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity Community Standard to be "guided by clear criteria that respect international human rights standards."

“Restrictions and exceptions to the rules regarding female nipples are extensive and confusing, especially as they apply to transgender and non-binary people,” wrote the council, which advises platforms on content moderation decisions.

The board called on social media platforms to review their current nudity policy, which bans users from posting images of bare breasts, after Meta removed two Instagram posts from a couple who identify as transgender and non-binary.

Posts that were uploaded in 2021 and 2022 featured images of the couple posing "topless" with their nipples covered, according to the board's statement. The images were accompanied by captions about transgender healthcare and included references to the couple's efforts to raise funds for top surgery.

"Following a series of alerts from Meta's automated systems and user reports, posts have been reviewed multiple times for potential violations of various Community Standards," the statement said. "Meta ended up removing both posts for violating the Sexual Harassment Community Standard, apparently because they contain breasts and a link to a fundraising page."

The couple appealed the decision to Meta and the board of directors, and the board of directors reversed both of Meta's decisions.

When investigating the decision to take down the posts, the Review Board said it found that the removal of the posts was not in line with "community standards, Meta's values or human rights responsibilities." According to the statement, after the board accepted the cases, Meta found it "deleted messages by mistake and restored them."

The Board also noted that the current policy is “based on a binary notion of gender and the distinction between male and female bodies”, and that “this approach makes it unclear how the rules apply to intersex, non-binary and transgender people and requires reviewers to make a quick and subjective assessment sex and gender, which is impractical for content moderation at scale.”

According to the council, the "extensive and confusing" rules regarding female nipples mean that policy exceptions such as "protests, birth scenes, and medical and healthcare contexts including upper surgery and breast cancer awareness" are "often confused and poorly defined.

The council currently states that "the same image of nipples representing a woman will be banned if posted by a cisgender woman, but allowed if posted by a person who identifies as non-binary," meaning that reviewers "probably will go out of their way to apply the rules.

If social media platforms must "respect international human rights standards" in their policies, the council recommends that Meta "adopt an approach to adult nudity that ensures that all people are treated without discrimination based on sex or gender identity."

The board's recommendation that Meta define "clear, objective, rights-respecting criteria" that all users be treated "without discrimination on the basis of sex or gender" follows a years-long campaign by the #FreeTheNipple movement to change Meta's policy.