Meta Lets Users Call LGBTQ People ‘Mentally Ill’
Meta platform users will be able to disparage LGBTQ people and advocate discriminating against them under a revised "hateful conduct" policy.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, has overhauled its moderation policies to allow users to use anti-LGBTQ rhetoric or insult LGBTQ people in the name of “free speech.”
Meta announced the change on January 7, noting that it was eliminating its third-party fact-checking system and replacing it with a user-based “Community Notes” model similar to the one employed by X.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg further announced the company would be relocating its content moderation teams from California to Texas to “help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content.”
All of it is being done in the name of promoting “free expression,” with Meta kowtowing to right-wing MAGA critics who claim the platform has limited the visibility of posts from conservatives or and has censored “free speech” as it pertains to religious or social issues, such as users who refuse to recognize transgender identity as valid.
Perhaps most appallingly, Meta has updated its “Hateful Conduct” policy to allow the use of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and offensive terms, according to The Verge.
In its revised policy, Meta defines prohibited “hateful conduct” as direct attacks against people — rather than concepts or institutions — on the basis of protected characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, or affliction with a serious disease.
It also considers age a protected characteristic when referenced along with another protected characteristic.
However, it appears to have carved out a host of exemptions that will specifically allow certain types of hate-based speech directed at LGBTQ individuals on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
For example, Meta claims that it prohibits “calls for exclusion or segregation when targeting people based on protected characteristics.” However, it will allow users to argue in favor of excluding LGBTQ individuals from certain careers or public spaces.
Instances of this include occasions when an organization refuses to hire — or fires — an LGBTQ person due to an employer’s sincerely held religious beliefs opposing homosexuality.
Additionally, Meta will also allow users to call for barring access to sex-specific spaces such as restrooms, sports and sports leagues, health and support groups, and sex-segregated educational institutions.
The new policy prohibits Meta users from making allegations or assertions about another person’s “mental characteristics,” such saying a person is stupid, intellectually deficient, or mentally ill.
But the company, in its commitment to “free expression,” will allow “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism (sic) and homosexuality.”
While other forms of “hateful conduct” are technically banned, it remains to be seen whether Meta will actually enforce its ban on such speech. For example, the LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD reported last year that Meta platforms have been deficient in removing posts that violated the company’s previous restrictions on “hate speech.”
According to a report from the liberal-leaning media watchdog organization Media Matters for America, even prior to the recent policy changes, Meta failed to protect users from so-called “hate speech.” It alleges that Meta allowed networks of right-wing media outlets to spout and even amplify anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
For instance, Meta failed to moderate accounts employing “hate speech,” such as “Libs of TikTok” and “Gays Against Groomers,” whose anti-LGBTQ content and rhetoric has been blamed for inciting threats of violence against LGBTQ people and organizations.
According to Media Matters, Meta has also profited from anti-LGBTQ hate speech, earning millions in revenue.
A March 2023 report claimed that the conservative media outlet The Daily Wire profited from at least 558 ads promoting anti-LGBTQ content, earning at least $5.7 million.
Other studies found that Meta had failed to moderate hundreds of ads employing the anti-LGBTQ “groomer” slur, even though Meta claimed to have banned the term from its platforms.
Still another study alleged that, between March 2023 and August 2024, Meta failed to enforce its previous “hate speech” policy, allowing at least 100 posts containing an anti-trans slur to remain on its platforms.
Kayla Gogarty, research director for Media Matters, responded to Meta’s revised policies in a statement.
“Both the substance of the changes, and the messaging from Meta, mirror — and are seemingly a direct appeal to — Trump and MAGA media, who have spent years claiming to be defenders of free expression and victims of censorship,” she said.
Additionally, journalist Taylor Lorenz reported on her User Mag Substack that Meta was restricting content with LGBTQ-related hashtags from searches on Instagram, categorizing content employing those hashtags as “sensitive content” or “sexually suggestive content.”
GLAAD blasted the most recent changes announced by Zuckerberg, alleging that Meta’s new policy will result in platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Threads becoming “unsafe landscapes filled with dangerous hate speech, violence, harassment, and misinformation,” particularly with respect to LGBTQ identity.
“Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanizing narratives,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “With these changes, Meta is continuing to normalize anti-LGBTQ hatred for profit — at the expense of its users and true freedom of expression.”
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