Facebook must unblock a satirical image of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz that’s based on the “Dumb and Dumber” movie poster, according to a Wednesday ruling from parent company Meta’s Oversight Board.
The picture — which included a shrug and two middle finger emojis with it — was banned shortly after it was posted in August. It was taken down, according to the Oversight Board’s ruling, because it showed the Democratic nominee and her running mate “grabbing each other’s nipples through their clothing,” just like the 1994 movie poster.
This violated the company’s rules against bullying and harassment, which prohibit users from sharing “derogatory sexualized photoshop or drawings.”
The Oversight Board didn’t share details about the user who posted the image, and it didn’t include the picture in its ruling. But here is a look at the altered image, since it’s been floating around online elsewhere:
The user who posted the image appealed the ban to the Oversight Board, which the company launched in 2020 to review Facebook’s censorship decisions. The board agreed the post should’ve stayed up, saying in its Wednesday ruling this was an example of “overenforcement” of Meta’s Bullying policy “with respect to satire and political speech.”
“It also points to the dangers that overenforcing the Bullying and Harassment policy can have, especially in the context of an election, as it may lead to the excessive removal of political speech and undermine the ability to criticize government official and political candidates, including in a sarcastic manner,” the Board said in its ruling.
The board — which is comprised of 20 members, including American legal scholars and the former prime minister of Denmark — added: “This post is nothing more than a commonplace satirical image of prominent politicians and is instantly recognizable as such.”
Facebook, after being approached by its Oversight Board, restored the original post.
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