How Meta Turned Its Back on Human Rights

Meta has never been a paragon of principle. From its careless handling of users’ personal data to its acquiescence in the face of foreign authoritarian governments’ censorship demands, Meta has provided many reasons to doubt its commitment to human rights. But for a time, the company made what seemed like a good-faith effort to improve its track record. Now, instead of continuing to lead his company on the path to progress, Meta’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has chosen to disregard longstanding human rights norms in favor of a simplistic — and politically expedient — approach to free speech.

Why human rights are relevant

Human rights are minimum standards meant to protect individuals against egregious treatment — actions that violate people’s ingrained sense of basic fairness. Those who live in democratic societies tend to take these rights for granted. We expect that those who intentionally inflict harm on others will face consequences, but only after being afforded due process, including an opportunity to contest the charges against them.

Human rights standards don’t guarantee a perfect world, as it is common for some rights to come into conflict. Rather, they comprise a system of norms for balancing different rights and interests in a way that respects the fundamental dignity of every human being.

With this focus on basic protections, these norms have gained wide acceptance — most countries, including the United States, have ratified the core international treaties that form the backbone of the human rights system. Many businesses, including Meta, have also embraced these norms. On its website the company expresses its commitment to “champion respect for human rights in every action we take and every product we build.”

How Meta is breaching its commitment

But last week, Zuckerberg announced that his company will no longer work to detect abuses of its platforms other than “high-severity violations” of content policy, such as those involving illicit drugs, terrorism, and child sexual exploitation. The clear implication is that the company will no longer strive to police its platform against other harmful content, including hate speech and targeted harassment. Zuckerberg’s rationale is that trying to root out such content at scale led to “too many mistakes and too much censorship.” He added that Meta needed to “get back to [its] roots” of protecting free speech. But this justification, even though it alludes to the fundamental right of freedom of expression, does not actually stand up to scrutiny under human rights standards.

While freedom of expression is a widely recognized human right, it is subject to certain limitations that protect other rights or societal interests, such as protecting people against imminent violence. Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a legally binding treaty, everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including seeking, receiving, and imparting information and ideas. But the treaty acknowledges that the exercise of this right may be limited if it is necessary to protect “the rights or reputations of others.” Further, limitations on expression are actually required when the speech constitutes “advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence.”

The US Constitution’s First Amendment sets a different limit on free speech, preventing the government from restricting many kinds of speech, including those that incite discrimination or hostility. This is why the US government entered a reservation to Article 20 of the ICCPR. But the First Amendment binds the government rather than private entities, which have greater latitude to protect their customers against hate speech and targeted harassment.

Indeed, corporations can and should respect human rights norms. Meta, in particular, has explicitly vowed to uphold those norms and use this international legal framework to develop its operating principles. Zuckerberg’s decision to prioritize free speech at the expense of countering hate speech and incitement to discrimination is therefore out of step with human rights standards and a breach of his public-facing commitments.

The need for nuance

Human rights law makes a distinction between hate speech and merely offensive speech. The prohibition of hate speech is meant to protect individuals against targeted discrimination and hostility, not to prevent the discussion of controversial topics or shield belief systems and institutions from criticism. Thus, statements like “democracy is a worthless system” or “all religion is garbage” are arguably allowed under human rights doctrine, while threats against people based on their sexual orientation (e.g., “if you are gay, you don’t deserve to live”) or dehumanizing slurs meant to incite hatred against a racial group (e.g., let’s deport all Jews to concentration camps”) are not.

Meta elides this distinction, now reportedly allowing certain hate speech when it relates to a controversial topic such as transgender rights. The company deleted a line in its content policies that stated hate speech “creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion, and in some cases may promote offline violence.” Yet removing that language from its policies doesn’t erase the evidence — from Myanmar, Ethiopia, and elsewhere — that hate speech is often a precursor to massive violations, including genocide.

Instead of challenging the company’s unfortunate retreat on human rights, Meta’s Oversight Board, an advisory body the company created to guide it in applying human rights norms, issued an ill-considered quasi-endorsement of Meta’s recent announcement. Rather than being quick to “welcome” Meta’s “renewed push for free speech in 2025” and its new approach to fact-checking, the Board should have taken the time to thoroughly analyze all the new changes under human rights law.

Returning to fundamental principles

It’s not too late for members of the Oversight Board and others within the company to challenge Meta’s ill-advised change of course and urge it to redouble its commitment to fundamental human rights principles. Zuckerberg was right to point out that translating human rights norms into scalable content moderation algorithms is very challenging and will almost certainly remain imperfect. But Meta previously vowed to try, and we should hold the company to its word.