2025 Social Media Safety Index

2025 Platform Scorecard Indicators

1: The company should have public-facing policies that protect LGBTQ people from hate, harassment, and violence on the platform.

2: The company should have a public-facing policy that states it provides users with a dedicated field to add and change gender pronouns on their user profiles.

3a: The company should have a public-facing policy that prohibits targeted misgendering^[1] on the basis of gender identity.

3b. The company should have a public-facing policy that prohibits targeted deadnaming^[2] on the basis of gender identity.

4: The company should have a public-facing policy that prohibits content promoting so-called “conversion therapy.”^[3]

5a: The company should have a public-facing policy that explains what options users have to control or limit the company’s collection, inference, and use of data and information related to their sexual orientation.

5b: The company should have a public-facing policy that explains what options users have to control or limit the company’s collection, inference, and use of data and information related to their gender identity.

6: The company should have a public-facing policy that states that it does not recommend content to users based on their disclosed or inferred sexual orientation or gender identity, unless a user has proactively opted in.

7: The company’s public-facing policies should state that it does not allow third-party advertisers to target users with, or exclude them from, seeing content or advertising based on their disclosed or inferred sexual orientation or gender identity, unless the user has proactively opted in.

8: The company should have a public-facing policy that prohibits advertising content that promotes hate, harassment, and violence against LGBTQ individuals on the basis of protected characteristics.

9: The company should regularly publish data about the actions it has taken to restrict content and accounts that violate policies protecting LGBTQ people.

10: The company’s public-facing policies should explain the proactive steps it takes to stop demonetizing and/or wrongfully removing legitimate content and accounts related to LGBTQ topics and issues.

11: The company should regularly publish data about the actions it has taken to stop demonetizing and/or wrongfully removing legitimate content and accounts related to LGBTQ topics and issues.

12: The company should publicly commit to providing mandatory training for content moderators, including those employed by contractors, focused on LGBTQ safety, privacy, and expression on the platform.

13: The company should have a public-facing policy that explains its internal structures to best ensure the fulfillment of its commitments to overall LGBTQ safety, privacy, and expression on the platform.

14: To create products that better serve all of its users, the company should make a public commitment to continuously diversify its workforce, and ensure accountability by periodically publishing voluntarily self-disclosed data on the number of LGBTQ employees across all levels of the company.

Read more information about the 2025 SMSI Platform Scorecard Indicators and Elements .

Footnotes

^[1] Targeted misgendering is a form of hate speech that involves the intentional use of the wrong gender and/or gender pronouns when referring or speaking to a transgender, nonbinary, or gender non-conforming person. Source: GLAAD
^[2] Targeted deadnaming is a form of hate speech whereby a person intentionally “reveal[s] a transgender person’s former name without their consent – often referred to as ‘deadnaming’ – [which] is an invasion of privacy that undermines the trans person’s true authentic identity, and can put them at risk for discrimination, even violence.” Source: GLAAD
^[3] “Conversion therapy” is a widely condemned practice that involves any psychological or religious intervention aimed at changing an LGBTQ person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Complicating efforts to address the amplification of harmful “conversion therapy” content online, its purveyors also promote this dangerous practice under alternate labels such as “leaving homosexuality” and “unwanted same-sex attraction.” Sources: GLAAD; Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE)