GLAAD has bestowed Twitter the title of most unsafe major social platform for LGBTQ people, a word of warning to those still active on the tarnished platform that the site is failing to protect many of its most at-risk users.
The assessment comes from the national LGBTQ media advocacy organization’s new 2023 Social Media Safety Index (SMSI), an annual analysis of LGBTQ user safety on the five big social media platforms: TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. The index looks at 12 different indicators, including internal and explicit safety policies, in-house diversity, inclusive site options, and the prohibiting of anti-LGBTQ advertisers, and then issues each platform its own SMSI Scorecard rating in collaboration with Goodwin Simon Strategic Research and tech accountability group Ranking Digital Rights. As GLAAD explains, it is “the industry’s first standard for tackling online anti-LGBTQ hate and increasing safety for LGBTQ social media users.”
The 2022 report gave failing grades across the board and, unfortunately, it hasn’t gotten much better.
Despite marginal scorecard improvements from Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube in 2023, the organization found that all of the biggest platforms “continue to fail at enforcing the safeguarding of LGBTQ users from online hate speech, fail at providing transparency in the use of LGBTQ-specific user data, and fail in expressing commitments to protecting LGBTQ users, specifically, policies and commitments to protect transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming users from being targeted.”
But Twitter was certainly the worst of the bunch. Following a parade of regressive policies and practices under CEO Elon Musk, the site was the only one to see its score decline (down 12 points) over the last year, making it the most unsafe platform according the report’s scorecard.
“Dehumanizing anti-LGBTQ content on social media such as misinformation and hate have an outsized impact on real world violence and harmful anti-LGBTQ legislation, but social media platforms too often fail at enforcing their own policies regarding such content. Especially as many of the companies behind these platforms recognize Pride month, they should recognize their roles in creating a dangerous environment for LGBTQ Americans and urgently take meaningful action,” wrote GLAAD president and CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis, in the report’s announcement.
The entire sector is effectively unsafe for LGBTQ users.
While the other four platforms improved their safety scores since 2022, none of the sites scored higher than a 63 percent on the report’s scorecard. Instagram scored the highest, improving its number by 15 points due to new policies from parent company Meta that prohibit misgendering users, add checks to its targeted ad system, and enforce a gender policy training for content moderators. The app still lacks protections for transgender, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming users against deadnaming and lost points for its temporary removal of a pronoun field from account bios.
Facebook’s score also improved by 15 percent (to 61 total) due to the same Meta improvements, but similarly lacks policies against deadnaming, does not publish data on how it’s enforcing safety policies for LGBTQ users, and lacks an LGBTQ policy leader to safeguard LGBTQ expression and privacy.
TikTok ranks at 57 points, the only social platform with a policy protecting users against both misgendering and deadnaming. Since 2022, it’s improved its privacy offerings for LGBTQ users and trainings for content moderation, but lacks limits on third-party advertisers and other data collection.
With a 2023 score of 54 percent, YouTube only went up by nine points, credited for improvements to its trainings and diversity reporting, but the video site lacks any misgendering or deadnaming policies, does not offer data privacy to users, and is unclear about its content demonetization and removal policies, according to the index.
Twitter tallied just 33 points in the 2023 report, following the loss of its Hateful Conduct Policy protections for transgender users, diversity reporting, and data privacy, among other inadequacies.
Platforms lack transparency, enforcement, and action, prioritizing profit over LGBTQ safety and lives.
Across the board, the report found that platforms have inadequate content moderation, “harmful and polarizing” algorithms, and an “overall lack of transparency and accountability” for protecting marginalized communities at risk of hate and harassment.
The report pointed out the prevalence of platform loopholes on many sites, which allow anti-LGBTQ hate to proliferate in digital spaces that prioritize free expression. For example, Meta’s policy of distinguishing public figures from private individuals has allowed hate to move past its moderation teams, fueling anti-LGBTQ circles online and stoking responsive hate, identified in the index as “‘stochastic harassment‘: weaponizing talking points that incite others to harassment without being a harasser.”
Twitter and Meta platforms were called out for their advertiser behavior, as well, which GLAAD writes is “prioritizing brand safety over user safety.”
GLAAD also found that in addition to “egregious levels of inadequately moderated anti-LGBTQ material” there is an over-moderation of “legitimate LGBTQ expression,” including takedowns of LGBTQ accounts and creators, mislabeling of LGBTQ content as “adult” content, demonetization of LGBTQ materials, the practice of “shadow-banning” LGBTQ accounts, and other forms of LGBTQ suppression.
While it’s not included in the platform’s scorecards, the report also noted that even when safety mechanisms for LGBTQ users are in place, most of the sites are routinely failing to enforce many of them.
Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on social media translates to real-world harm.
Building on its analysis of platform policy, the new SMSI also noted how social media has influenced anti-LGBTQ action in the real world, including progressively harmful legislation and direct violence.
“There is a direct line from dangerous words to violent behavior against the LGBTQ community,” Ellis wrote in the report. “The nexus and vehicle for so much of this rhetoric is the major social media companies. And we have seen — over and over again — how these companies fail to protect LGBTQ users and fail to enforce their own policies, which assert that hate speech, bullying, and harassment are not allowed on their platforms.”
GLAAD also published a spreadsheet documenting a rise in violent crimes over the last year.
Anti-LGBTQ hate speech and misinformation are a public health and safety issue.
According to the Social Media Safety Index, these findings provide a baseline for tech leaders and users to check the progress (or lack thereof) of social media giants, and hold them accountable to improve the safety of their online ecosystems — in doing so, these actors have the obligation to create a healthier digital experience, which has reverberating effects on physical, mental, and public health. To that end, GLAAD’s industry recommendations include:
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Strengthening and enforcing existing policies that protect LGBTQ people and others from hate, harassment, misinformation, and suppression of expression.
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Improving moderation.
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Increasing transparency via collaboration with independent researchers.
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Stopping violations of personal and data privacy.
The report also calls for urgent regulatory oversight of the entire tech industry, especially given the proliferation of AI, “with the goal of protecting LGBTQ people (and everyone) from the dangerous impacts of an industry that continues to prioritize private profits over the public interest.”
Other organizations and campaigns mentioned in the GLAAD report as contributing to LGBTQ online protections include the Anti-Defamation League, Check My Ads, The Facebook Log Out, Stop Hate for Profit, Change the Terms, and Stop Toxic Twitter.
“While this report is focused on the five major social media platforms, we know that other companies and platforms — from Snapchat to Spotify, Amazon to Zoom — can benefit from these recommendations as well,” the report reads. “We strongly urge these companies and others to make the safety of their LGBTQ customers and users an urgent priority, both in their policy development and in their policy enforcement.”
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