All major social media platforms do poorly at protecting LGBTQ+ users from hate speech and harassment — especially those who are transgender, non-binary or gender non-conforming, the advocacy group GLAAD said Thursday. But Twitter is the worst. In its annual Social Media Safety Index, GLAAD gave Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter low or failing scores, saying the platforms don’t do enough to keep their users safe. That said, most improved from a year ago.
Twitter, which was acquired by Tesla CEO Elon Musk last October, was the only exception. GLAAD’s scorecard called it “the most dangerous platform for LGBTQ people” and the only one that saw its scores decline from last year — to 33% from 45% a year ago.
Twitter‘s communications staff was eradicated after Musk took over the company and for months inquiries to the press office have been answered only with an automated reply of a poop emoji, as was the case when The Associated Press reached out to the company for comment.
Online harassment
LGBTQ+ advocates have long warned that online hate and harassment can lead to violence offline. But even when it does not, online abuse can take a toll on a person’s mental health. “There isn’t a week that goes by that we don’t have a doxxing situation for somebody in our community that we have to come in and help them stop it and stop the hate, stop the vitriol and stop the attacks,” said GLAAD CEO and President Sarah Kate Ellis referring to the malicious practice that involves gathering private or identifying information and releasing it online without the person’s permission, usually in an attempt to harass, threaten, shame or exact revenge. “It’s really been amped up to a level that we’ve never seen before.”
Attacks on LGBTQ increased
On Twitter, attacks on LGBTQ+ users have increased substantially since Elon Musk took over the company last fall, according to multiple advocacy groups. A big part of the reason is the drastic staffing cuts Musk has enacted since his takeover — there are simply not enough content moderators to handle the flood of problematic tweets that range from hate speech to graphic material and harassment. Musk has also said he views Twitter’s previous policies were too restricting.
In April, for instance, Twitter quietly removed a policy against the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals, raising concerns that the platform is becoming less safe for marginalized groups. Musk has also repeatedly engaged with far-right figures and pushed misinformation to his 143 million followers. Twitter, as part of the same retooling of its site policies, also changed how it responds to tweets that violate its rules. While in the past, offending tweets were removed, the company now says it will sometimes restrict a tweet instead of removing it from the platform altogether.
(With inputs from AP)
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