Thursday, January 23, 2025
HomeNews ReportsMeta's new moderation policies now allow Facebook users to call members of the LGBTQ...

Meta’s new moderation policies now allow Facebook users to call members of the LGBTQ community ‘mentally ill’

References objectifying or alleging mental illness based on gender or sexual orientation will now be allowed by Meta. For example, users can now post references like ‘household objects or property’ for women and ‘mentally ill’ for transgender or non-binary persons.

Meta on Tuesday announced its revised free speech policy regarding the content posted on Facebook and Instagram, ending its partnerships with fact-checking organizations and relaxing restrictions on discussions related to immigration, gender identity, and gender.

The updated guidelines from Meta continue to prohibit insults targeting a person’s intellect or mental health on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, consistent with previous versions. However, the latest guidelines now make an exception for claims that LGBTQ individuals are mentally ill due to being gay or transgender.

“We allow references to mental illness or abnormality when related to gender or sexual orientation, considering political and religious discourse surrounding transgenderism and homosexuality, as well as common non-serious usage of terms like ‘weird’,” the revised policy states.

These adjustments to hate speech rules are part of Meta’s broader overhaul of its content moderation approach across its platforms.

References objectifying or alleging mental illness based on gender or sexual orientation will now be allowed by Meta. For example, users can now post references like ‘household objects or property’ for women and ‘mentally ill’ for transgender or non-binary persons. Opinions supporting gender-based restrictions in certain professions which were earlier prohibited will also be allowed under the new policy.

However, restrictions against slurs, incitement of violence and targeted harassment of protected groups based on race, ethnicity and religion will remain in place.

The announcement was made in a video message and a blog post by Meta released on Tuesday wherein CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company will be replacing ‘third-party fact-checkers’ with ‘community notes’ emulating X (formerly Twitter) owned by Elon Musk.

Meta’s third-party fact-checking programme was introduced in 2016. The company partners with independent third-party fact-checkers that are certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) to fact-check information that appears false or misleading. The community notes system, which X has been following since Musk took over it, involves people having different viewpoints agreeing on notes that add context or clarifications to controversial posts.

“We are going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X starting in the US”, said Zuckerberg. “Fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they have created, especially in the US,” he added. Meta’s action is being seen as an attempt to improve relations with the incoming Trump government. Recently, Trump had criticised Meta’s fact-checking policy alleging that it censored right-wing voices.

Admitting that the company’s move was inspired by the community notes feature of X, Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, Joel Kaplan said, “We have seen this approach work on X, where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context”.

Join OpIndia's official WhatsApp channel

  Support Us  

Whether NDTV or 'The Wire', they never have to worry about funds. In name of saving democracy, they get money from various sources. We need your support to fight them. Please contribute whatever you can afford

OpIndia Staff
OpIndia Staffhttps://www.opindia.com
Staff reporter at OpIndia

Related Articles

Trending now

Punjab and Haryana HC slams AAP govt, asks how can they have no money for forensic labs but lavish spending on advertising and cars

The court rebuked the AAP government for taking a position that there shortage of funds for allocating the budget for buying modern technology tools for Forensic Science Laboratories while huge amounts are otherwise being spent.

Uttarakhand government notifies Uniform Civil Code, becomes the first state in India to do so

This Act does not apply to the Scheduled Tribes (ST) notified under Article 342 and Article 366 (25) of the Constitution and protected authority-empowered persons and communities under Part XXI have also been excluded from its purview.
- Advertisement -