Meta platforms will allow users to accuse LGBTQ+ people of being mentally ill because they are gay or transgender, after their moderation policies, which prohibited insulting someone’s intellect or mental illness, were adjusted, according to reports in US media on Tuesday.
“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,’” the revised company guidelines read.
The new guidelines around hate speech are part of Meta’s broader major changes regarding how it moderates online speech on its platforms, according to reports.
Other changes to the policies reportedly include new hate speech guidelines, including removing rules that forbid insults about a person’s appearance based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, and serious disease.
Meta also reportedly scrapped policies that prohibited expressions of hate against a person or a group on the basis of their protected class and that banned users from referring to transgender or nonbinary people as “it.”
Policy chief statement
Meta’s global policy chief, Joel Kaplan, was quoted by the New York Times as saying that Meta’s content moderation efforts will refocus on “illegal and high-severity violations,” adding that “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms.”
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