Meta has done a poor job of policing anti-LGBTQ posts, according to a new report on the spread of anti-trans hate from nonprofit advocacy group GLAAD.The report comes nine months after 250 LGTBQ celebrities wrote an open letter to Meta expressing that the company needed to do more to cull the hate on its platforms. The letter cited a variety of hate-related content, including misinformation about transgender healthcare, promoting a narrative that transgender people groom children, and “relentless bullying and harassment of trans public figures.”The report notes that “extreme anti-trans hate content remains widespread across Instagram, Facebook, and Threads.” GLAAD cites dozens of posts made between June 2023 and March 2024, many of which came from accounts with high follower counts and are still live. They feature posts that call trans people “satanic,” and accuse the trans community of being perverts, pedophiles, groomers, and terrorists. GLAAD argues that each post breaks multiple Meta content policies, but when it reported them, Meta said the “posts were not violative” or didn’t respond.”LGBTQ people — notably trans people — are experiencing extraordinary amounts of such hate on Meta’s platforms,” GLAAD says, which includes Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.Meta says it defines hate speech “as direct attacks against people — rather than concepts or institutions— on the basis of what we call protected characteristics,” which includes sexual orientation, sex, and gender identity. A hate speech attack, it says, is defined “as dehumanizing speech; statements of inferiority, expressions of contempt or disgust; cursing; and calls for exclusion or segregation.” It also bans “use of harmful stereotypes.”
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In January, however, the company’s Oversight Board concluded that Meta is “not living up to the ideals it has articulated on LGBTQIA+ safety.” Its failure to remove a post that urged transgender people to kill themselves highlighted the need for Meta to “invest more in the development of classifiers that identify potentially violating content impacting the LGBTQIA+ community and enhance training for human reviewers on gender identity-related harms.”Among Meta’s recent layoffs, however, were significant cuts to its moderation staff.
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