NEW: GLAAD RESPONDS TO META’S LATEST ANTI-LGBTQ CHANGES TO CONTENT POLICY AND DEI THAT WILL HARM USERS

GLAAD: “Meta and Mark Zuckerberg are now not only permitting and encouraging, but engaging in anti-LGBTQ hate speech … Meta is now an anti-LGBTQ company.”

January 10, 2024 — GLAAD, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) media advocacy organization is responding to Meta’s unprecedented set of draconian changes to its corporate policies, hate speech policies, and product features. In a single week, Meta modified major sections of its Hateful Conduct policy (to allow anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and remove protections for LGBTQ users); terminated its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs; deleted trans and nonbinary themes on Messenger; and ended its fact-checking program. These striking announcements follow years of imperfect, but visible LGBTQ inclusion from Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms.

Response from GLAAD’s Social Media Safety Program:
“With these changes, Meta and Mark Zuckerberg are now not only permitting and encouraging, but engaging in anti-LGBTQ hate speech — by intentionally employing anti-LGBTQ language (“transgenderism”) in the company’s own hate speech policy and instituting new policies permitting extreme anti-LGBTQ slurs (“tr*nny”),” said a GLAAD spokesperson. “This is a complete break with best practices in content moderation and squarely moves the company into the territory of Truth Social and other extreme right-wing platforms that are unsafe for youth and advertisers. Platforms that encourage anti-LGBTQ hate and violence and other strains of general extremist rhetoric.”

GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis today responded to the latest developments:
“Meta’s sweeping, hate-driven corporate policy and product changes this week are shocking and dangerous. The company’s litany of dangerous actions is unprecedented. In one week, they have dismantled an entire history of brand-safety best practices, consumer trust, and most importantly, user safety. These changes will harm users and make Meta’s platforms unsafe for everyone. Meta is now an anti-LGBTQ company.”

As reported by several media outlets, many of these changes originated from new Meta Global Policy Chief Joel Kaplan. These moves follow Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s statements and actions, including Zuckerberg’s $1M donation to the incoming administration, seeking an active role in the Trump administration, and mischaracterizing these egregious company changes as a stance against “censorship” following Trump’s election in 2016.

On Tuesday, GLAAD responded after Meta removed and adapted several sections of its Hateful Conduct Policy, rolling back safety guardrails for LGBTQ people, people of color, women, immigrants, and other protected groups. These changes are in addition to news this week that Meta will end its fact-checking program. Read GLAAD’s full analysis here.

Timeline of Meta’s anti-LGBTQ actions this week:

• On Friday, Axios reported that Meta is terminating its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg appeared on right-wing commentator Joe Rogan’s show announcing the widespread changes, and promoting the disproven narrative that conservative accounts are unfairly “censored.”
• On Friday, The New York Times reported that there will no longer be any Meta teams devoted to DEI, goals for hiring women and minorities, nor a diversity preference for working with outside, minority-owned supplier businesses.
• On Friday, 404 Media reported that Meta deleted trans and nonbinary themes on Messenger.
• On Thursday, The Intercept and Platformer leaked excerpts from new training materials for now-allowable content, which include dehumanizing attacks on LGBTQ people and many other marginalized groups. In the materials, Meta states that “tr*nny” is no longer a designated slur and is now non-violating. When used in a derogatory way, “tr*nny” is an extreme slur for a trans person. Note: Meta spelled out this slur in its communications. See GLAAD’s Fact Sheet, which explains why this word is a slur and why we recommend media not repeat it without an asterisk.
  • Examples in the training materials for content moderators include: “Trans people are mentally ill,” “A trans person isn’t a he or she, it’s an it,” and “Get these tr*nnies out of my school (beneath a photo of high school students).” Note: in this example, Meta also did not modify the slur with an asterisk.
• On Thursday, 404 Media reported that, among LGBTQ and ally employees, the changes have “sparked widespread backlash at the company.”
• On Tuesday, Meta announced that it is ending its fact-checking program, and the company removed and adapted major sections of its Hateful Conduct policy
  • The updated policy now allows “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism [sic] and homosexuality [sic].” Note: “transgenderism” a right wing neologism intended to imply that being trans is an ideology, and “homosexuality” is an outdated and pathologizing way of referring to LGBTQ people. Meta has not previously used these terms in public policies or communications.
• In recent weeks, Meta made several executive personnel changes, including installing Joel Kaplan as Global Policy Chief, Dustin Carmack (former Project 2025 and Ron DeSantis staffer) as Director of Public Policy, and UFC head Dana White on its board of directors.

The new language of Meta’s Community Standards includes numerous changes that will result in Instagram, Facebook, and Threads becoming unsafe landscapes filled with dangerous hate speech, violence, harassment, and misinformation. This week, Platformer spoke to 10 current of former employees, who said that the changes would likely lead to substantial increases in hate speech.

Experts in trust and safety and extremism are increasingly examining the connections between online hate and real-world violence. GLAAD’s ALERT Desk has tracked more than 2,100 anti-LGBTQ incidents from June 2022 – December 2024, including 750+ incidents specifically targeting transgender and non-binary people.

As highlighted in GLAAD’s 2024 Social Media Safety Index (SMSI) report, Meta’s Facebook, Threads, and Instagram are largely failing to mitigate dangerous anti-LGBTQ hate and disinformation. In August 2024, GLAAD and Media Matters for America found 100 Meta posts with the anti-trans slur “tr*nny.” Even after the content was escalated to Meta’s team, the company chose to not remove the majority of the posts (even though the posts objectively violated its policies). In March 2024, GLAAD released a report that found Meta is largely failing to moderate extreme content targeting trans people.

About GLAAD’s Social Media Safety Program: As the leading national LGBTQ media advocacy organization GLAAD is working every day to hold tech companies and social media platforms accountable, and to secure safe online spaces for LGBTQ people. The GLAAD Social Media Safety (SMS) program researches, monitors, and reports on a variety of issues facing LGBTQ social media users — with a focus on safety, privacy, and expression. The SMS program has consulted directly with platforms and tech companies on some of the most significant LGBTQ policy and product developments over the years. In addition to ongoing advocacy work with platforms (including TikTok, X/Twitter, YouTube, and Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and others), and issuing the highly-respected annual Social Media Safety Index (SMSI) report, the SMS program produces resources, guides, publications, and campaigns, and actively works to educate the general public and raise awareness in the media about LGBTQ social media safety issues, especially anti-LGBTQ hate and disinformation.