GLAAD gives social media giants poor grades over lack of LGBTQ protections : NPR

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LGBTQ flags fly in London’s Hyde Park on July 24, 2021.

Alberto Pezzali/AP


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Alberto Pezzali/AP


LGBTQ flags fly in London’s Hyde Park on July 24, 2021.

Alberto Pezzali/AP

LGBTQ social media customers say social media is neither a welcoming nor a secure place for them, a new GLAAD report reveals.

In a survey, 84% of LGBTQ adults mentioned not sufficient protections are on social media to stop discrimination, harassment or disinformation, in response to the report. Moreover, 40% of LGBTQ adults, in addition to 49% of transgender and nonbinary individuals, don’t really feel welcomed and secure on social media.

That is due to the degrees of hate and harassment they face whereas on platforms akin to Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Fb and YouTube, in response to GLAAD.

GLAAD’s findings, launched Wednesday, are part of the group’s second annual Social Media Security Index — a report on LGBTQ consumer security throughout these 5 main social media platforms. GLAAD is the world’s largest lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender and queer media advocacy group.

GLAAD graded every social media firm based mostly on every platform’s measures to guard LGBTQ customers. It took into consideration options akin to whether or not these platforms supply gender-pronoun choices on profiles or block advertisements that might be dangerous or discriminatory.

Instagram, Fb, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok all acquired failing grades, with every receiving a rating below 50 out of a potential 100. TikTok scored the bottom at 43%. Instagram scored the very best at 48%.

On-line hate and harassment rapidly flip into real-world issues for LGBTQ individuals, and these social media platforms should do extra to cease it, in response to GLAAD.

“In the present day’s political and cultural landscapes show the real-life dangerous results of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and misinformation on-line,” GLAAD’s president and CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis, mentioned in an announcement. “The hate and harassment, in addition to misinformation and flat-out lies about LGBTQ individuals, that go viral on social media are creating real-world risks, from laws that harms our group to the current threats of violence at Satisfaction gatherings.”

Ellis went on to say, “Social media platforms are lively individuals within the rise of anti-LGBTQ cultural local weather and their solely response might be to urgently create safer merchandise and insurance policies, after which implement these insurance policies.”

GLAAD graded Instagram, Fb, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok on their measures to guard LGBTQ customers. All acquired failing grades.

Jenny Kane/AP


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Jenny Kane/AP

A current report by the Anti-Defamation League revealed that 66% of
LGBTQ+ survey respondents reported experiencing hate-based on-line harassment — a far-higher stage than non-LGBTQ+ people at 38%. That report additionally confirmed that 54% of LGBTQ+ respondents reported experiencing “extreme harassment,” which covers bodily threats, stalking, sexual harassment and doxing.

A number of state legislatures throughout the U.S. have adopted anti-gay and anti-trans legal guidelines that restrict conversations about sexuality and gender identification in colleges or block gender-affirming take care of trans youngsters.

Viral hate speech and misinformation are an enormous driver of these anti-LGBTQ payments, in response to GLAAD’s report.

“Platforms are largely assembly this harmful misinformation with inaction and sometimes don’t implement their very own insurance policies concerning such content material,” the group mentioned in its information launch.

The group made a number of suggestions that it says every social media firm ought to undertake to deal with points on their platforms.

These embrace defending LGBTQ customers’ knowledge privateness, particularly in areas the place they’re significantly weak to severe hurt and violence.

“This contains ceasing the follow of focused surveillance promoting, in
which corporations use highly effective algorithms to suggest content material to customers with a purpose to maximize revenue,” GLAAD says.

The group additionally recommends that these corporations enhance their algorithms in order that they don’t amplify dangerous content material, extremism and hate. Content material moderators must also get extra coaching to raised perceive the wants of customers in order that they’ll take away content material that may be hurtful, GLAAD mentioned.

The group applauded TikTok and Twitter for prohibiting customers from misgendering or deadnaming (disclosing an individual’s start identify) transgender and nonbinary individuals.

“All platforms ought to comply with the lead of TikTok and Twitter and may instantly incorporate an express prohibition in opposition to focused misgendering and deadnaming of transgender and non-binary individuals into hateful conduct insurance policies,” GLAAD’s senior director of social media security, Jenni Olson, mentioned in an announcement. “This suggestion stays an particularly excessive precedence in our present panorama the place anti-trans rhetoric and assaults are so prevalent, vicious, and dangerous. We additionally urge these corporations to successfully reasonable such content material and to implement these insurance policies.”

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