Tell Meta: Reinstate Protections for Women, LGBTQ+ People, Black and Brown People on Your Platforms NOW!

Meta

On the morning of January 7, less than two weeks before Trump's inauguration, Meta took a gigantic step backward at the expense of every single one of us.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a set of rollbacks to the tech giant’s content moderation policies.1 Central to these changes are Meta’s elimination of their fact-checking program and major updates to their Hateful Conduct Policy that remove protections for women, people of color, trans people, and more. Meta’s content moderation approach is now set to resemble X’s Community Notes, according to Zuckerberg.2

Under Meta's updated policy, users will be allowed to:

  • Refer to women as their personal property, and curse at them “in the context of a romantic breakup”3
  • Call women and LGBTQ+ people mentally ill based on their gender or sexual orientation3
  • Promote the economic and social exclusion of women, LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants (e.g. call for the removal of gay people from teaching roles, based on “religious beliefs”)3
  • Refer to marginalized groups as “criminals”

This isn't just our interpretation of the updates. Leaked training materials from Meta confirm examples of hate speech that Meta has now explicitly greenlit, despite previously flagging them as incendiary and dangerous. Here are a few examples:

  • "Women are crazy"4
  • "A trans person isn't a he or she, it's an it."4
  • "A trans woman isn’t a woman, it’s a pathetic confused man."5
  • "Gays are freaks"6
  • "Immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit."6
  • "Black people are more violent than whites"6
  • "Get these tr*nnies out of my school (beneath a photo of high school students)."6

While Meta has long not adequately enforced their Community Standards to protect marginalized groups, this policy overhaul provides a blank check to bad actors on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads to use hateful, misleading, and outright false statements to harass, discriminate against, and enact violence against women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, survivors of sexual violence, Black and Brown communities, and more. The risks aren’t just digital, as evidence shows that online threats and discrimination often result in offline harms.7,8,9

The rollbacks also send a clear political message: Zuckerberg--who implemented the fact-checking program in 2016 after Facebook faced criticism for facilitating the spread of hate and disinformation leading up to and in the wake of Donald Trump’s first election win--is now ready to bend the knee to Trump and his acolytes.10 To make the political motivation even more evident, rollbacks to Meta's fact-checking were made alongside appointments of pro-Trump Republicans to key leadership positions,11 deletion of trans and nonbinary Messenger themes,12 a termination of their DEI programs,13 and a reversal on “political content” recommendation limits just before Trump takes office.14

Zuckerberg spoke in his statement about how these policy changes are intended to mitigate censorship and expand speech. But of course, we know who will continue to be bullied, harassed, and censored and whose speech will be allowed to flourish. These updates will specifically silence and target historically marginalized groups globally.

Add your name now to call for reinstated protections for marginalized communities on Meta.

Sources:

1. More Speech and Fewer Mistakes, Meta, January 7, 2025

2. Meta is ending its fact-checking program in favor of a 'community notes' system similar to X's, NBC News, January 7, 2025

3. GLAAD RESPONSE: META AND MARK ZUCKERBERG REMOVE LONG-STANDING ANTI-LGBTQ HATE SPEECH POLICIES AFTER ANNOUNCING END OF FACT-CHECKING PROGRAM, GLAAD, January 7, 2025

4. Inside Meta’s dehumanizing new speech policies for trans people, Platformer, January 9, 2025

5. “Trans People Are Freaks.” Meta Leaks Reveal Specific Anti-LGBTQ+ Content the Company Now Allows, Them, January 10, 2025

6. Leaked Meta Rules: Users Are Free to Post “Mexican Immigrants Are Trash!” or “Trans People Are Immoral,” The Intercept, January 9, 2025

7. Anti-LGBTQ Online Hate Tropes and Connections to Offline Harm, GLAAD, accessed January 15, 2025

8. The Chilling: A Global Study On Online Violence Against Women Journalists, International Center for Journalists, November 2, 2022

9. Online Violence, Amnesty International, accessed January 9, 2025

10. Opinion: Meta is changing its rules and embracing Trump. What does that mean for the world? Los Angeles Times, January 8, 2025

11. How Mark Zuckerberg pivoted Meta to the right, NBC, January 8, 2025

12. Meta Deletes Trans and Nonbinary Messenger Themes, 404 Media, January 10, 2025

13. Exclusive: Meta kills DEI programs, Axios, January 10, 2025

14. Politics content to be pushed on all Instagram and Threads users, BBC News, January 10, 2025

To: Meta
From: [Your Name]

Since the early 2000s, social media platforms have been experimenting with how to best protect users like us from potentially harmful content online, including extreme hate speech, harassment, and disinformation. The balance has never been perfect, but most platforms--with tech giant Meta at the helm--have generally been moving forward.

Your rollbacks to fact-checking and hate speech policies are significant steps backward.

Most of us use social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, for connection and community. A big part of what allows us to do so with relative safety is the mitigation of hateful and harassing content that targets us. Though imperfect, these systems both helped keep us safe and set a standard of care for the most vulnerable online. This precedent is crucial because women, LGBTQ+ people, Black and Brown people, immigrants, and other protected groups disproportionately face online harassment and hate speech, including on Meta platforms.

Meta was already struggling to adequately implement its policies that aimed to protect marginalized groups. Now, the disparity is about to sharply widen.

In all, this policy overhaul provides a carte blanche for bad actors on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads to intimidate, harass, discriminate against, and enact violence against marginalized communities, who arguably most benefit from online spaces because of risks and threats they face in offline spaces. It also provides a green light for bad actors to spread misleading claims and outright lies about these groups.

It’s clear that decisions are being made at Meta for political, subjective reasons. Zuckerberg spoke in his statement about how these policy changes are intended to mitigate censorship, expand speech, and make content moderation more neutral. But of course, there is nothing neutral about these changes, which came just ahead of Trump’s inauguration and were made alongside appointments of pro-Trump Republicans to key leadership positions, deletion trans and nonbinary Messenger themes, termination of DEI programs, and reversal of Meta's “political content” recommendation limits just before Trump takes office.

We see the writing on the wall: If these changes stay in place, already vulnerable groups will continue to be attacked, harassed, and censored, while the speech of a select few whose beliefs align with Meta’s leadership will be allowed to flourish.

Facebook, Instagram, and Threads users urge you to reinstate your fact-checking program and hate speech policies NOW.