It wasn't just fact-checking that Meta scrapped from its platforms as it prepares for the second Trump administration. The social media giant has also loosened its rules around hate speech and abuse—again following the lead of Elon Musk's X—specifically when it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity as well as immigration status, the AP reports. The changes are worrying advocates for vulnerable groups, who say Meta's decision to scale back content moderation could lead to real-word harms. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday that the company will "remove restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse," citing "recent elections" as a catalyst.
For instance, Meta has added the following to its rules—called community standards—that users are asked to abide by:
- "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.'"
In other words, it is now permitted to call gay people mentally ill on Facebook, Threads, and Instagram. Other slurs and what Meta calls "harmful stereotypes historically linked to intimidation"—such as Blackface and Holocaust denial—are still prohibited. The Menlo Park, California-based company also removed a sentence from its "policy rationale" explaining why it bans certain hateful conduct. The now-deleted sentence said that hate speech "creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion, and in some cases may promote offline violence." (More
here.)
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