As you know, Facebook and Instagram, owned by parent company Meta, are obsessed with people's nipples. It's a cringey craze they've fixated on for years and moderated with so much accumulated confusion and inconsistency that their own oversight board has now scolded them to change their policies.
Just this week, the Meta Oversight Board recommended an amendment to the company's "Adult Nudity guidelines and Sexual Activity Community Standard" (something we have "violated" MANY times) in order to "respect international human rights standards."
HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS!!!
A statement from the company says its review of Meta's application of its nipple policies found "fundamental issues."
"Meta’s internal guidance to moderators on when to remove content under the Sexual Solicitation policy is far broader than the stated rationale for the policy, or the publicly available guidance. This creates confusion for users and moderators and, as Meta has recognized, leads to content being wrongly removed," the company said.
"In at least one of the cases, the post was sent for human review by an automated system trained to enforce the Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity Community Standard. This Standard prohibits images containing female nipples other than in specified circumstances, such as breastfeeding and gender confirmation surgery."
The report specifically called out the difficulties and unfairness transgender and nonbinary users face.
"This policy is based on a binary view of gender and a distinction between male and female bodies. Such an approach makes it unclear how the rules apply to intersex, non-binary and transgender people, and requires reviewers to make rapid and subjective assessments of sex and gender, which is not practical when moderating content at scale."
How does this affect The TaTa Top?
Hopefully this means that our Facebook page will eventually stop fucking around with us. We have a "restriction" on our page, which means it's pretty much nonexistent to people who don't already follow it. I barely post anything there because it feels pointless and we always get in trouble. It's especially frustrating because after I appeal a post's removal, the majority of the time they say "oops our bad" and put it back up. But by then, there is already a black mark on our page and it says we have numerous "violations" — even though most of them were incorrectly taken down and then subsequently put back up. Here are some recent ones:
On Instagram, somehow I was able to get verified, which helped. However, there is a huge inconsistency in which products it will let us tag, display, and sell. It may allow me to tag the light tone top in a small, but the medium size may not meet "community standards." Or it will let me show the light tone, but not the medium or dark. Through Meta's selling channels, we are pretty much screwed because of this policy. You can follow us on Facebook here, Instagram here, and TikTok here (they also don't like us lol).
So if you're thinking of getting a new TaTa Top, now is a great time! LMAO (but seriously)
I really hope that these findings and recommendations are taken seriously by Zuckerberg et al and that changes are made. It affects our business, our charitable donation abilities, and it's overall bad for society. FREE THE NIP FOR ALL YOU COWARDS!
The statement is pretty scathing, especially when you consider its META itself saying this...
You can read the full thing here, but a few other bangers include:
"Exceptions to the policy range from protests, to scenes of childbirth, and medical and health contexts, including top surgery and breast cancer awareness. These exceptions are often convoluted and poorly defined."
"Here, the Board finds that Meta’s policies on adult nudity result in greater barriers to expression for women, trans, and gender non-binary people on its platforms. For example, they have a severe impact in contexts where women may traditionally go bare-chested, and people who identify as LGBTQI+ can be disproportionately affected, as these cases show."
OH HELL NO