GLAAD: Social Media Platforms Are Failing to Keep LGBTQ+ Users Safe
Social Media Safety Index, and it has found that major social media platforms remain lacking when it comes to safety for LGBTQ+ users.The organization evaluated five platforms — Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok — and all of them scored under 50 percent on the index.
Instagram had 48 percent, Facebook 46 percent, Twitter 45 percent, YouTube 45 percent, and TikTok 43 percent.They were evaluated on 12 indicators.
These include whether the company discloses a policy commitment to protect LGBTQ+ users from harm, discrimination, harassment, and hate on the platform; an option for users to add pronouns to their profiles; a policy that expressly prohibits targeted deadnaming and misgendering of other users; what options users have to control the company’s collection, inference, and use of information related to their sexual orientation and gender identity; and training for content moderators, including those employed by contractors, that trains them on the needs of vulnerable users, including LGBTQ+ users.“Today’s political and cultural landscapes demonstrate the real-life harmful effects of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and misinformation online,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a press release. “The hate and harassment, as well as misinformation and flat-out lies about LGBTQ people, that go viral on social media are creating real-world dangers, from legislation that harms our community to the recent threats of violence at Pride gatherings.
