Meta’s Moderation Modifications Mean Anti-LGBTQ Speech Is Welcome, While Pro-LGBTQ Speech Is Not

Content Moderation

from the maga-bar dept

On Monday, Taylor Lorenz posted a telling story about how Meta has been suppressing access to LGBTQ content across its platforms, labeling it as “sensitive content” or “sexually explicit.”

Posts with LGBTQ+ hashtags including #lesbian, #bisexual, #gay, #trans, #queer, #nonbinary, #pansexial, #transwomen, #Tgirl, #Tboy, #Tgirlsarebeautiful, #bisexualpride, #lesbianpride, and dozens of others were hidden for any users who had their sensitive content filter turned on. Teenagers have the sensitive content filter turned on by default.

When teen users attempted to search LGBTQ terms they were shown a blank page and a prompt from Meta to review the platform’s “sensitive content” restrictions, which discuss why the app hides “sexually explicit” content.

This is notable because, despite the moral panic around “kids and social media,” even the most ardent critics usually (reluctantly) admit social media has been incredibly useful for LGBTQ youth seeking information and community, often benefiting their health and wellbeing.

I had started to write up this article about that, planning to focus on two points. First, contrary to the popular (but false) belief that content moderation targets traditionally “conservative” speech, it very often targets traditionally “progressive” speech. We see these stories all the time, but the MAGA world either doesn’t know or doesn’t care.

Second, this seemed like a pretty strong reminder of how LGBTQ content will be on the chopping block if KOSA becomes law. Indeed, the very existence of the “sensitive content” restrictions on Meta’s platforms (including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads) was actually the company trying to comply-in-advance with KOSA, forcing all teenagers to have the “sensitive content filter” on by default.

In other words, Meta effectively revealed that, yes, of course the easiest way to abide by KOSA’s restrictions will be to restrict access to any pro-LGBTQ content.

In response to Lorenz’s story, Meta said (as it always does when one of these kinds of stories pops up) that it was “a mistake” and promised to correct it. But, as Lorenz notes, the suppression happened for quite some time, and users who tried to raise the alarm found their own posts hidden.

Some LGBTQ teenagers and content creators attempted to sound the alarm about the issue, but their posts failed to get traction. For years, LGBTQ creators on Instagram have suffered shadow bans and had their content labeled as “non-recommendable.” The restrictions on searches, however, are more recent, coming into effect in the past few months. Meta said it was investigating to find out when the error began.

“A responsible and inclusive company would not build an algorithm that classifies some LGBTQ hashtags as ‘sensitive content,’ hiding helpful and age-appropriate content from young people by default,” a spokesperson for GLAAD said. “Regardless of if this was an unintended error, Meta should… test significant product updates before launch.”

Of course, just as I was initially working on this post on Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg dropped his whole “hey we’re kissing up to Trump by cutting back on how much we moderate” thing, which certainly changed the way I was looking at this particular story.

While I wrote more about that announcement yesterday, I didn’t cover the specific changes to the policies, as those weren’t made as clear in the initial announcement, which was more about the philosophy behind the policy changes. Kate Knibbs, at Wired, had the scoop on the specific changes within the policies, which makes it clear that Meta’s new view of “non-biased” moderation is basically “hateful people are now welcome.”

In a notable shift, the company now says it allows “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’”

In other words, Meta now appears to permit users to accuse transgender or gay people of being mentally ill because of their gender expression and sexual orientation. The company did not respond to requests for clarification on the policy.

Again, Meta is absolutely free to do what it wants with its policies. That’s part of its own free speech rights. And, yesterday, I explained why some of the underlying reasons for the policy changes made sense, but here they’re not just saying “hey, we’re going to be less aggressive in pulling down content,” they’re explicitly signaling “hate has a home here!”

I mean, what the fuck is this?

We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like “weird.”

That’s in a section saying users are not allowed to post about others’ “mental characteristics” including mental illness, but then they create that new exception to that policy.

If it wasn’t already clear that Meta’s new policies are deliberately bending over backwards to write in exceptions for MAGA culture war favorites, just take a look at the other changes Wired highlighted:

• Removing language prohibiting content targeting people based on the basis of their “protected characteristics,” which include race, ethnicity, and gender identity, when they are combined with “claims that they have or spread the coronavirus.” Without this provision, it may now be within bounds to accuse, for example, Chinese people of bearing responsibility for the Covid-19 pandemic.
• A new addition appears to carve out room for people who want to post about how, for example, women shouldn’t be allowed to serve in the military or men shouldn’t be allowed to teach math because of their gender. Meta now permits content that argues for “gender-based limitations of military, law enforcement, and teaching jobs. We also allow the same content based on sexual orientation, when the content is based on religious beliefs.”
• Another update elaborates on what Meta permits in conversations about social exclusion. It now states that “people sometimes use sex- or gender-exclusive language when discussing access to spaces often limited by sex or gender, such as access to bathrooms, specific schools, specific military, law enforcement, or teaching roles, and health or support groups.” Previously, this carve-out was only available for discussions about keeping health and support groups limited to one gender.

We noted yesterday that the larger change in direction was clearly political. The specifics here make that even clearer. As I noted, there are some legitimate rationales for cleaning up how Meta handles enforcement of its rules, as that has been a total mess. But all of these changes are not in how they handle enforcement. They’re literally all about creating exceptions to their (still in existence) hateful conduct policy to create space for the exact kinds of bigotry and hatred favored by MAGA provocateurs.

This is just confirming that Meta’s about-face is not actually about fixing a broken trust & safety enforcement program writ large, but to just rewrite the rules to allow for more cruelty and hatred towards marginalized groups disfavored by the MAGA world.

It seems like quite a choice. We’ve discussed at great length the whole “Nazi bar” concept, and this is very much a Nazi bar moment for Zuckerberg. This is not calling him a Nazi (as some will inevitably, misleadingly, whine). The whole point of the “Nazi bar” idea is that if the owner of a private space makes it clear that Nazis are welcome, then everyone else will come to realize that it’s a Nazi bar. It doesn’t matter whether or not the owners are Nazis themselves. All that matters is the public perception.

And these specific changes are very much Zuckerberg yelling “Nazis welcome!”

A couple of years ago, when Substack more or less made the same decision, my main complaint was that the company wanted to signal that it was the Nazi bar by dog whistling without coming out and admitting it outright. It’s your private property. You can run it as a Nazi bar if you want to, No one’s stopping you from doing it.

But fucking own it.

Don’t give some bullshit line about “free speech” when it’s not true. Just own what you’re doing: “we’re making a space for bigots to feel comfortable, by changing our rules to expressly cater to them, while expressly harming the marginalized groups they hate.”

That would be the honest admission. But just like Substack, Meta won’t do this, because it’s run by cowards.

Indeed, the most incredible thing in all of this is that these changes show how successful the “working the refs” aspect of the MAGA movement has been over the last few years. It was always designed to get social media companies to create special rules for their own hot button topics, and now they’ve got them. They’re literally getting special treatment by having Meta write rules that say “your bigotry, and just your bigotry, is favored here” while at the very same time suppressing speech around LGBTQ or other progressive issues.

It’s not “freedom of speech” that Zuck is bringing here. It’s “we’re taking one side in the culture war.”

In altering their policies to appease extremists, Meta is directly endangering the well-being and safety of LGBTQ users on their platforms.

As mentioned, he’s free to do that, but no one should be under any illusion that it’s a move having to do with free speech. It’s a political move to say “Nazis welcome” at a moment when it looks like the rhetorical Nazis are about to return to power.

I had mentioned yesterday that this was Zuck trying to follow Musk’s path, which makes some amount of sense. Ever since Elon took over, it’s been pretty clear that Zuck was somewhat jealous of the way in which Musk basically told anyone who didn’t like how he was running ExTwitter to fuck off.

So, it makes sense in two dimensions: (1) trying to be more like Elon in not giving in to public pressure and (2) the spineless appeasement of the new political leaders.

But it doesn’t make much sense on the one other vector that kinda matters: business. Hell, Zuckerberg rushed out Threads as a competitor to ExTwitter because people at Meta recognized how Elon’s haphazard mess of moderation had driven not just users away, but advertisers too.

Zuck may be betting that, because a slim margin of voters put MAGA in charge, advertisers and users will fall in line. But I’m guessing it’s a bet that’s going to bust in a pretty embarrassing manner before too long.

Filed Under: bias, content moderation, hate speech, hateful conduct, hateful conduct policy, lgbtq, maga, mark zuckerberg, nazi bar
Companies: facebook, instagram, meta