Meta regularly allows anti-trans hate posts calling for murder of “pedophiles”

Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads — has failed to enforce its own policies against anti-transgender hate posts, including posts made by high-profile political influencers and media outlets, according to a newly released report from the LGBTQ+ media advocacy group GLAAD.

GLAAD cataloged numerous posts referring to trans individuals as the slur “tr***y” as well as “mentally ill,” “satanic,” “sexual predators,” pedophiles,” “terrorists,” and “perverts,” The Washington Post reported. One illustrated image showed a group of people stoning a trans-identified person to death; another showed a masked person holding a gun standing on top of a demon painted in the colors of the transgender flag.

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Meta has long been criticized for failing to enforce its anti-hate speech policies.

Other cataloged posts said that trans people seek to “sexualize, sterilize, and butcher children.” Others misgendered trans celebrities, mocked trans suicide victims, suggested violence against medical professionals offering gender-affirming care, promoted conversion therapy, and called for the “eradication” of trans people.

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The posts were made by accounts associated with the right-wing publication The Daily Wire, Gays Against Groomers, Chaya Raichik’s Libs of TikTok, The Babylon Bee, and One Million Moms.

The posts violate Meta’s stated policies against anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech and “dehumanizing speech” that conveys a protected group’s “inferiority,” “subhumanity,” an intent to bully or harass such groups, and statements that a protected group shouldn’t exist.

In a June 2023 open letter facilitated by GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign, over 250 LGBTQ+ celebrities, public figures and allies asked Meta and other social media companies to do more to fight the massive wave of anti-transgender hate on their platforms. The letter was signed by such queer and allied celebrities as Elliot Page, Laverne Cox, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janelle Monáe, Gabrielle Union, Judd Apatow, Ariana Grande, and Jonathan Van Ness.

However, the recent report states that Meta hasn’t done nearly enough to fight the tide. In September 2023, Facebook’s own Oversight Board wrote, “The fundamental issue in this case is not with the policies, but their enforcement. Meta’s repeated failure to take the correct enforcement action, despite multiple signals about … harmful content, leads the Board to conclude the company is not living up to the ideals it has articulated on LGBTQIA+ safety.”

In its statement about its recent report, GLAAD wrote, “Meta itself acknowledges in its public statements and in its own policies that hate speech ‘creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion, and in some cases may promote offline violence.’ Such acknowledgements of its own culpability make Meta’s negligence and refusal to protect people from such hate… all the more shocking.”

Additionally, some LGBTQ+ content creators on Meta have accused the company of limiting their post’s reach because of Meta’s new restrictions on political content, including content involving politicians and queer social issues.

“As the trillion-dollar company’s revenues soar, Meta continues to lay off critical trust and safety teams and increasingly relies on ineffective AI systems for content moderation,” GLAAD wrote in its report. “Meta’s enforcement failures have prompted repeated rebukes and concern from the Oversight Board (the independent body that makes non-binding but precedent-setting content moderation rulings on Meta’s platforms). As Axios and The Verge have documented, some users find that their reports on harmful content are not reviewed at all.”