Meta barely enforced its old content moderation policy
meta's own ai admits it (cw descriptions of hate)
Tech giant Meta has been making a lot of news lately in the worst way possible. Last week, they rolled out AI “users” to add even more slop to their platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. These included an AI user named Liv who is a “proud Black queer momma of 2 & truth-teller.” To be clear, Liv is not real, and Meta’s approach trivializes these identities in a truly insulting way - especially in light of how Meta’s Llama large language model AI, was not trained on queer content. Further, journalist Taylor Lorenz reported this week that Instagram has quietly blocked teens from searching for queer content by construing it as “sexually suggestive.”
In spite of all this, Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg forged ahead with updates to its content moderation policies, aligning it’s strategy with flailing social media platform X. These changes explicitly target LGBTQIA2S+ people by permitting “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.” Additionally, the same guidelines allow speech that advocates for “sex or gender-based exclusion from spaces commonly limited by sex or gender, such as restrooms, sports and sports leagues, health and support groups, and specific schools.” These policies are clearly a capitulation to right-wing discourses that seek to delegitimize queer people, including through sanism (the discrimination against people with or perceived to have mental illness).1
The explicit nature of Meta’s revisions are truly shocking, but its indifferent attitude toward marginalized groups is not. In 2022, the journalism watchdog Media Matters identified multiple Instagram accounts that were spreading hate while accumulating significant follower numbers. At the time, Media Matters reported 5 of these accounts but were told that at least 4 were not in violation of Meta’s community standards (despite clear racist and anti-Semitic hate speech).
Queer people have also suffered from Meta’s refusal to uphold its old content moderation policy. In September 2023, GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis called on Mark Zuckerberg to “denounce the scourge of violent anti-trans hate content on Meta as at odds with your company values.” Ellis issued this challenge amid a high profile instance of transphobia on Facebook.2 Zuckerberg issued no such apology.
Additionally, a Media Matters report from August 2024 identified at least 100 active posts on Meta’s platforms used the transphobic t-slur. Of these posts, 75 were on Facebook, 18 on Instagram, and 7 on Threads. Fourteen posts were made in the aftermath of the right-wing’s boycott of Bud Light for partnering with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. At the time, Meta’s content moderation policies prohibited the use of slurs, but the company took no action on 22 of 23 posts that Media Matters reported during their investigation. For more examples of hate, GLAAD highlights examples of anti-queer posts on Meta’s platforms.
Last year, Media Matters confronted Meta’s AI chatbot (named Meta AI) with their many examples of hateful content on the platforms and asked if the posts violated the company’s content moderation policies. Meta AI clearly identified hateful posts as such and advocated for their removal — in line with Meta’s previous policies. Consider the screenshot below when Meta AI is asked about the Instagram account for Gays Against Groomers, an anti-LGBTQ extremist group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Maybe the chatbots should run Meta. (Just kidding, that would be horrible!)
At this point, you may be throwing your hands up and wondering why Meta’s new policies matter if they didn’t bother enforcing the old policies. That’s certainly true in practice, but the explicit shift is critical in itself. Meta dropping the pretense of queer friendliness is a prime example of corporate virtue signaling (ironic, given that Zuckerberg has accused users leaving Meta’s platforms of the same).
The target of Meta’s signaling is clearly the incoming Trump administration with its cabal of tech bros. The prime beneficiaries of these policy changes are hate mongering right-wing extremists who think it’s fun and cool to punch down at marginalized groups. In the meantime, hateful misinformation spreads across these platforms, while Meta puts its hand in its pockets pretending to be a neutral party.
This hints at a critical issue that social media companies publicly fail to grasp. Meta (as well as Twitter/X and others, including Substack) like to fashion themselves as a “public square” where all voices can be heard regardless of content. This is a false reality given the scale of these behemoth platforms, hence why content moderation has become a critical issue.
When enacting moderation policies, tech companies are never neutral arbiters. Their decisions signal to users about who is welcome on the platform. Meta’s new policies signal that queer people are certainly not valued members of Meta’s platforms whereas queerphobes are. In effect, this contributes to ongoing efforts to socially exclude queer and trans folx from basic parts of society like bathrooms, sports teams, or classrooms. In this overt political project, Meta has clearly chosen its side — and it’s not ours.
Doctors aren't trained in queer health. But you can help!
If you are a queer person, you probably have had at least one bad experience with the medical system. Maybe a doctor asked you invasive questions about your sexuality or sexual practices. Or, they misgendered you (even after you shared your pronouns). Perhaps they didn’t know what you were talking about when you asked a…
I cannot speak for every queer person, but my mental illnesses are intimately linked with dysphoria and trying to fit into the cisheteronormative and abled expectations of our society.
I will not recount the details of this transphobic post here as it will sure be traumatizing to many. If you want to read about the case, you can do so here. However, please be aware that there is reference to suicide. If you or a loved one is struggling with suicidal ideation, please contact 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or the hotlines through the Trevor Project or Trans Lifeline. Personally, I recommend the latter two, especially for queer folx.
Disgusting. Profits. Nothing else matters. Shame!
feeling this one hard .-.