Posted on 01/08/2025 9:30:41 AM PST by simpson96
Good news for anyone wanting to spew hate and make the world a worse place: Meta has amended its Hateful Conduct policy to be more permissive to bad behaviour, allowing divisive and discriminatory content to thrive on its platforms. Users on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are now allowed to call gay people "mentally ill", women "property", and entire ethnicities "diseases".
Instagram blocked LGBTQ+ content by accident, Meta claims The tech giant made significant changes to its Hateful Conduct policy on Tuesday, lifting prohibitions against a wide range of divisive and harmful rhetoric. Notably, Meta's amended policy completely removed restrictions against dehumanising people on the basis of a "protected characteristic" by likening them to certain inanimate objects, filth, and diseases such as cancer. Users are also now permitted to state that protected characteristics don't or shouldn't exist, or are inferior.
Protected characteristics are defined by Meta as "race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, [or] serious disease."
Meta further removed its previous acknowledgement that hateful conduct on its platforms "creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion, and in some cases may promote offline violence."
Equally as notable as the restrictions Meta has removed is the content that it now explicitly allows, with harmful anti-LGBTQ rhetoric specifically permitted. In a video posted on Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that the company is removing restrictions that are "out of touch with mainstream discourse."
"We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like 'weird,'" wrote Meta.
The American Psychological Association (APA) is clear that being transgender or same-sex attracted are not mental disorders, as neither cause significant distress or disability. Each was removed from the APA's official list of mental illnesses in 2012 and 1973 respectively. In fact, the APA notes that it is discrimination and lack of acceptance in society which can lead to transgender people suffering from the actual mental disorders of anxiety and depression. (snip)
These changes coincide with Meta's decision to eliminate fact-checkers and replace them with a Community Notes system. Zuckerberg claimed that fact-checkers have become "too politically biased," and that "what started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas."
As noted above, many such opinions are actively harmful and have no basis in fact. Even so, Meta seems determined to platform such content, with Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan stating in a blog post that they have been "limiting legitimate political debate and censoring too much trivial content and subjecting too many people to frustrating enforcement actions."
It appears that in Meta's estimation, subjecting users to enforcement of a conduct policy is less acceptable than subjecting them to dehumanisation.
"We’re getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate," wrote Kaplan. "It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms."
In many parts of the world (not the USA, btw) women are legally property. If we can’t talk about it, how can we stop it?
Trans people are mentally ill.
In many parts of the world (not the USA, btw) women are legally property. If we can’t talk about it, how can we stop it?
Trans people are mentally ill.
Well, boo hoo hoo.
Lefties hate it when anyone speaks truth that they disagree with.
The public square can be a bitch.
Do we get to call them butthurt liberals?
Fascist Pantywaists has a nice ring to it.
Both of those things are rude. But not illegal. The censorship regime and cancel culture has to stop. If you don’t like what someone says, or just disagree or have information to provide then you can either ignore them or rebut them. That is the American way.
Yet somehow it’s probably true that Amanda Yeo participated in and still agrees with the appropriateness of disparaging Christianity and white men.
Well, they are! They are Metas property if you read the user agreement.
Amanda Yeo is an Assistant Editor at Mashable, covering entertainment, culture, tech, science, and social good. Based in Australia, she writes about everything from video games and K-pop to movies and gadgets.
Amanda previously worked in refugee law to assist people seeking asylum in Australia, and holds degrees in both Communication and Laws. After making the switch to journalism, her articles have appeared in numerous publications such as Kotaku, Fandom, Cosmos, and Empire Magazine. Her fiction has also been published in several books, and her work performed by theatre companies such as the Australian Theatre for Young People.
A REAL expert on this topic. /sarc
In Dim run states, babies are referred to as “not a person, just a clump of cells”
You couldn't tell that by looking at posts on meta and x and other social media outlets.
Woody Allen and his daughter, Soon Yi, had a kid?
How does this work for non “free speech” countries?
Eg, china, Saudi Arabia, etc..
Are they now ungaged? is this merely in “free” countries?
What happened to what they used to call Gender Dysphoria?
If someone calls women “property”, people will ignore it, argue against it or ridicule it. What Amanda is really upset about is the artificial consensus that she and her ideological fellow travelers are trying to create won’t be enforced by censorship. If someone calls a “trans-person” mentally ill and she doesn’t like it, she can write a community note.
Well, homosexuals, as well as “transgenders,” are mentally ill.
Exactly.
So?
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