Zuckerberg Allows Transphobia Across Meta Platforms
Meta, the social media conglomerate founded and operated by Mark Zuckerberg, announced the first week of January that it is now allowing allegations of mental illness and other derogatory language to be directed towards LGBTQ+ people across it’s platforms. Now, training materials have been obtained from the company that contain specific examples of insults that can be flung at queer users of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads with no repercussions.
This comes as part of Zuckerberg making a (not shocking, but disappointing) about-face to the MAGA side of things in the nick of time before the inauguration of Donald Trump into his second term, including a hefty million-dollar donation to his inauguration fund alongside the CEOs of Apple and Amazon. Almost exactly four years ago, Zuckerberg banned Trump from both Facebook and Instagram following the insurrection, saying that the risks of allowing him to continue spreading misinformation on the platforms were too great.
Now, in what is very transparently a last-ditch effort to win over the incoming president (and maybe win one of the offices which Trump is giving out to his friends and allies), the Meta CEO has tapped conservative news sites, most popularly FOX News Entertainment, to announce the newfound pro-Trump-ness of his platforms.
In the announcement about the changing policies on the platforms, made on January 7 via a five-minute-long Facebook video, Zuckerberg states that, “It’s time to get back to our roots” on Facebook and Instagram, and halfheartedly attempted to spin this action as not exclusively political, but also protective of Meta platform users from “drugs, terrorism, (and) child exploitation.”
The Meta CEO announced that the change will be made by replacing fact-checkers with “community notes” similar to the ones used on X (formerly Twitter). Anyone using the platform can contribute to these community notes, and regardless of how verifiable the notes are, they will be broadcast alongside the content they’re attempting to correct. Zuckerberg claims that the fact-checkers have been too politically biased, which amplifies the far-right talking point of social media, specifically Facebook, censoring exclusively conservative viewpoints.
Since this chilling action plan was announced almost two weeks ago, training materials for Meta moderators have been acquired by Platformer, a tech news outlet, that specifically outline the shiny new rules allowing for dehumanizing language towards LGBTQ+ users and how to act in response. Among these disgusting guidelines is the question, “Do insults about mental illness and abnormality violate when targeting people on the basis of gender or sexual orientation?” The official answer from Meta is now “No.” Other guidelines state that flat-out transphobic, misogynistic, and homophobic statements such as “Trans people are freaks,” “Women are crazy,” and “Gays are not normal” are completely fine to post on Meta platforms. More subtly, the trans and nonbinary pride themes previously on Messenger have been quietly removed as well.
Joel Kaplan, a spokesperson for the conglomerate, said to The Intercept that Meta is getting rid of all restrictions on hotly debated subjects that are often present within political deliberation such as immigration and gender. “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms,” Kaplan (famously conservative and pro-Trump since 2016) said to the outlet.
It’s important to remember, going into this inauguration, that where we the people put our money and our time is where we put our power. Consider that next time you doom scroll.
