Culture

Every Social Media Platform Is “Effectively Unsafe for LGBTQ Users,” New Report Finds


 

All major social media sites are “effectively unsafe for LGBTQ users,” according to a new report that confirms what LGBTQ+ people have long known to be true.

On Monday, the media watchdog group GLAAD released its inaugural Social Media Safety Index, in which it initially aimed to grade each platform on how well it protected the safety of LGBTQ+ users. The organization quickly found, however, that every site would have received a failing grade. These platforms include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Instead of grading each of these companies individually, a 50-page report analyzes their policies and offers extensive recommendations for improvement. This feedback includes “extensive input from leaders at the intersection of tech and LGBTQ advocacy,” according to the national LGBTQ+ nonprofit.

Some of the recommendations entail improving protections for LGBTQ+ users in community guidelines and hate speech definitions. Others span issues such as confronting bias in AI that disproportionately affects LGBTQ+ people, improving content moderation, employing dedicated LGBTQ+ policy leads, respecting data privacy, and combating misinformation about LGBTQ+ people.

But of the key issues outlined by GLAAD, the report says that the “prevalence and intensity of hate speech and harassment” is the most urgent threat to the safety of LGBTQ+ users on social media. It cites a 2021 report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) finding that queer and transgender people experienced disproportionately high rates of harassment online: at 64% compared to 41% for the general population. The vast majority of the alleged bullying and mistreatment took place on Facebook.

Though the survey is dedicated in large part to naming all the ways in which social media platforms have failed LGBTQ+ users, it also commends the platforms for the positive steps they’ve taken in recent years.

But none of those victories were unqualified. Facebook and YouTube were praised for creating inclusive original content, but YouTube is also guilty of frequently demonetizing or flat out removing videos by LGBTQ+ creators. Twitter bans misgendering and deadnaming, but attempts to flag content that violates these policies are often futile. TikTok got a thumbs up for categorizing pro-conversion therapy content as harmful to LGBTQ+ people, but a thumbs down for systematically “shadowbanning” LGBTQ+ hashtags.

Tik Tok logo seen displayed on a smartphone.

Ultimately, the report calls on the leaders of the major social media companies to prioritize LGBTQ+ safety, referring to these policies as an issue of public health. “Social media companies have had years, decades even, to demonstrate responsible curation and moderation of content,” it reads. “But they have not risen to the challenge, choosing to prioritize profit over public safety.”

GLAAD also calls on policymakers to create “regulatory oversight that will require these companies to be held accountable.” Although it doesn’t specify what such moderation might entail, the report doesn’t acknowledge that creation of such regulations often results in the suppression of sex workers and LGBTQ+ people. For example, the 2018 passage of SESTA-FOSTA, an amendment to Section 230, which grants platforms legal immunity from content generated by users, resulted in the endangerment of sex workers and the continued crackdown of LGBTQ+ expression.

Regardless of what the answer to the complex issue of content moderation may be, social media is undoubtedly a grim place for LGBTQ+ people at the moment, whether queer influencers who are demonetized or teenagers who face shadowbanning for sharing their experiences as queer people on TikTok. Change is definitely needed.

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