Anti-LGBTQ Posts Proliferated on Facebook, Instagram During Pride Month
metroweekly.comFacebook and Instagram allowed anti-LGBTQ content and misinformation to flourish during pride month. A recent study conducted by Media Matters for America, which monitors right-wing misinformation in media, claims that Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, allowed over 3,000 homophobic or transphobic posts to remain on its platforms during June, despite policies allegedly prohibiting hateful speech and anti-LGBTQ attacks.“Facebook and its parent company Meta had eagerly promoted Pride Month, adding Pride features on the platform, claiming to amplify LGBTQ creators, and reiterating the company’s supposed commitment to supporting LGBTQ people and to eliminating hate speech targeting them,” the report reads. “But Facebook has regularly failed to remove the dangerous and dehumanizing hate speech and misinformation targeting LGBTQ people coming from right-wing outlets, figures, and groups.”A large amount of the hateful posts were made by right-wing media outlets, the study found.
Over 40% of these posts were coming from three pages alone: The Blaze, The Western Journal, and The Daily Wire — all conservative outlets that frequently criticize recognition of LGBTQ rights, especially transgender rights.According the Media Matters, the sites would post a story with an anti-LGBTQ slant or sensationalizing certain developments related to LGBTQ issues, which would then be picked up by smaller right-wing accounts, giving it more exposure and interactions.
The pages also utilized right-wing celebrities like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ben Shapiro to increase web traffic and interaction with posts.“Typically they use the algorithm and these networks of pages to amplify this content that maybe they put on their website, but then.
