Facebook opens the door to more anti-LGBTQ lies and hate speech
The social network loosens restrictions on anti-trans posts.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg just made his social media network even more unsafe for LGBTQ people.
This week he announced that Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is eliminating the company-sponsored fact-checking that sought to block lies from appearing on the network. Facebook will depend on reader-contributed “Community Notes” to point out falsehoods, which will be published without hindrance but with a “label indicating that there is additional information for those who want to see it”.
The plan mirrors an practice adopted by X (Twitter) that its users say is like “whack-a-mole” and as such is ineffective at blocking misinformation.
Meta also announced that it is loosening restrictions on anti-transgender posts, because such topics “are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate. It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms.”
That apparently means that anti-LGBTQ Facebook users will face no repercussions if they taunt gay and trans people with claims that they are mentally ill.
Fabrice Houdart, the executive director of the Association of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors, addressed that issue in his weekly newsletter on LGBTQ+ Equality:
“Meta’s New Hate Speech Rules
“Wired reports that Meta’s overhaul of its content moderation policies this week has sparked backlash from LGBTQ+ advocates, particularly its decision to permit accusations of “mental illness or abnormality” based on gender identity or sexual orientation. While Meta claims this move aligns with “mainstream discourse,” critics warn it could encourage harmful narratives and harassment.
the company now says it allows “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’ “
Social media networks in general and Facebook in particular are often hotbeds of hostility to LGBTQ people, as illustrated in these articles in Erasing 76 Crimes:
- Senegal: Hate speech flourishes on Facebook in language used by 5 million
- Hate speech on Facebook: Some progress, much remains to be done (Middle East and North Africa)
- Combating hate speech: an open letter to Facebook (Middle East and North Africa)
- Tunisian police make LGBT arrests based on Facebook
- Petition to Facebook: Act against anti-LGBT hate-mongers (India and Bangladesh)
