Rise in anti-LGBTQ+ content on Meta platforms since rollback of protections: GLAAD study

There has been a rise in anti-LGBTQ+ content on Meta’s platforms since the company weakened its hate speech moderation policies in January, according to a new GLAAD study.

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In a survey of about 7,000 users, “we found stark evidence of increased harmful content, decreased freedom of expression, and increased (self-)censorship,” says an executive summary of the report, released Monday.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, announced the changes to its moderation policies January 7. These included “allowing anti-LGBTQ hate speech, such as stating that LGBTQ people are ‘abnormal’ and ‘mentally ill,’ as well as Meta’s own use of anti-LGBTQ language (referring to LGBTQ people using the terms ‘homosexuality’ and ‘transgenderism’ in its updated hate speech policy),” a GLAAD press release notes. It also ended third-party fact checking in the U.S. Some observers have called this a “MAGA makeover,” with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeking Donald Trump’s favor.

Since Meta hasn’t provided data on hate speech, GLAAD conducted its survey in partnership with UltraViolet and All Out. The users they surveyed come from 86 countries and were recruited through email and social media outreach.

One in six respondents reported experiencing some type of gender-based or sexual violence on Meta platforms. Ninety-two percent said they are concerned about harmful content increasing since the rollbacks, and the same percentage said they feel less protected from being exposed to or targeted by harmful content.

Seventy-two percent reported they see more hate targeting protected groups, more than 25 percent said they have been targeted directly with hate or harassment, 66 percent saw harmful content in their feeds, and 77 percent felt less safe expressing themselves freely on Meta platforms. When asked if harmful content had increased, 75 percent of LGBTQ+ respondents, 76 percent of women, and 78 percent of people of color said yes.

Related: What LGBTQ+ people should know about Meta’s new rules

“One user, who is trans and nonbinary, reported, ‘Violence against me has skyrocketed since January. I live in daily fear,’” says the GLAAD release. Another user said, “I rarely see friends’ posts now — my feed is filled with obscene manipulated images, commercial ads, and transphobic, sexist, violent comments, even under kitten videos. Death threats are not removed, even when reported.”

“I recently saw someone state they wished all transgender people would die by suicide — 41% to become 100%,” another user reported. “When I told them how awful that was, they called me a transphobic slur.” Yet another said, “One night I reported at least 10 comments directly inciting violence towards the LGBT community. Facebook responded within less than a minute saying that the comments were investigated and they didn’t see anything wrong, and [they] kept the comments up.” Another noted, “I recently posted information about my transition and someone responded with a picture of a noose.”

Related: Mark Zuckerberg continues MAGA metamorphosis on Joe Rogan’s podcast

The majority of survey participants were from the U.S., the U.K., and Canada, but some were from the Southern Hemisphere, and reports from there “underscore that unchecked hate online can — and does — translate to violence offline,” says GLAAD’s release. For instance, users in Colombia said there have been renewed attacks on trans people after the murder of Sara Millerey González in April. The crime was caught on video that was circulated on social media. “Where LGBTQ lives are already marginalized or criminalized, these policy rollbacks risk endangering us even more,” GLAAD’s release says.

Meta has said that in the first quarter of this year, “violating content largely remained unchanged for most problem areas.” But GLAAD points out in its release, “Those numbers are based solely on internal data and remain opaque to outside scrutiny. Our survey centers the lived experiences of users themselves, revealing that weakened policies have not led to, as Meta claims, ‘more speech and fewer mistakes’ — but rather to a more hostile environment for those already most vulnerable.”

Related: Meta Oversight Board rules anti-transgender videos don't violate hate speech rules

To assure online safety, GLAAD and its partners urge Meta to commission an independent third-party review of the impact of the January policy changes, centering user experiences; reinstate robust hate-speech protections for all historically marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ people; restore third-party fact-checking and proactive enforcement mechanisms globally; and engage civil-society stakeholders in future policy deliberations, ensuring that human rights perspectives shape content-moderation standards.

“Meta’s decision to gut its hate speech policy and fact-checking program has had immediate, devastating consequences for LGBTQ people and other marginalized communities,” said a statement from Leanna Garfield, senior manager of GLAAD’s social media safety program. “This new data confirms what GLAAD and others have warned for months: that Meta’s platforms are becoming increasingly hostile and unsafe. LGBTQ people, especially trans and gender nonconforming people, are reporting more targeted hate, less freedom to express themselves, and direct experiences of real-world harm as a result. By allowing harmful content to spread unchecked, Meta isn’t just abandoning its responsibility to protect users — it’s actively normalizing a culture of hatred and dehumanization. Meta has not only turned its back on its own community standards — it has turned its back on the very people those standards were meant to protect.”

The report is part of a larger campaign called MakeMetaSafe.org.