Major social media platforms failing to keep LGBTQ users safe: watchdog

Social media companies are failing to keep LGBTQ users safe on their platforms, according to a new report from GLAAD, an LGBTQ media watchdog.

All five major social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter — received low or failing scores on an annual assessment of LGBTQ user safety released Thursday.

The group’s third annual Social Media Safety Index graded each platform on LGBTQ safety, privacy and expression using 12 LGBTQ-specific indicators, including explicit protections from hate and harassment for LGBTQ users, offering gender pronoun options on profiles and prohibiting advertising that could be harmful or discriminatory to LGBTQ people.

Of the five platforms, Twitter received the lowest grade, at 33 percent. It was also the only platform to see its safety score decline from last year, which the report said was a result of several policy changes implemented under CEO Elon Musk, who took control of the company in October.

Musk over the past year has gutted the company’s content moderation team, which tracks abuse on Twitter, and the company in April removed a 2018 policy against misgendering and deadnaming transgender people.

In a tweet earlier this month, on the first day of Pride Month, Musk said misgendering people on the social media site is “definitely allowed.”

The remaining four social media platforms graded by GLAAD saw their scores increase markedly over the past year. YouTube received 54 percent on the group’s platform scorecard, while TikTok received 57 percent and Facebook received 61 percent. Instagram, at 63 percent, received the highest score in the report.

There is still, however, room for improvement, and social media companies must work harder to promote civil discourse and strengthen policies that protect LGBTQ people and others from hate and harassment, the GLAAD report concluded.

“The LGBTQ community is under attack, steadily having our basic rights stripped away in state after state, not to mention rising physical violence and threats,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in the report. Nearly 500 bills targeting LGBTQ people have been introduced this year in at least 45 states, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. More than 70 have become law.

“As we have seen over and over again — there is a direct line from dangerous words to violent behavior against the LGBTQ community,” Ellis said. “The nexus and vehicle for so much of this rhetoric is the major social media companies. And we have seen — over and over again — how these companies fail to enforce their own policies, which assert that hate speech, bullying, and harassment are not allowed on their platforms.”

The Hill reached out to the companies named in this report for comment.

“At TikTok, we’re focused on building a safe and supportive platform where the LGBTQ+ community can keep inspiring and thriving. We’re proud to have strong policies aimed at protecting LGBTQ+ individuals from harassment and hate speech, including misgendering and deadnaming, and we’re always looking to strengthen our approach, informed both by our community and the advice of experts, such as GLAAD,” a TikTok spokesperson said.

Thursday’s GLAAD report noted that while all five platforms in its assessment have policies in place that prohibit hate speech on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, the extent to which those policies are enforced is difficult to measure.

“We’re not rating them on enforcement, partly because we’re not able to other than in an anecdotal way,” said Jenni Olsen, GLAAD’s senior director of social media safety. “We don’t have transparency into what they’re actually doing.”

Olsen added that GLAAD often encounters failures in the enforcement of community guidelines across each platform. It regularly flags posts deemed hateful or dangerous for mitigation, Olsen said, but those reports often go unanswered.

In an interview, Ellis warned that, when left unchecked, rampant anti-LGBTQ hate speech, misinformation and conspiracy theories online will translate into real-world violence against the community.

“What happens online actually becomes real-life problems for the LGBTQ community,” she said. “We’re seeing it more than ever before.”

Updated at 11:57 a.m.