Twitter is the worst major social media platform when it comes to LGBTQ+ safety, says GLAAD

SAN FRANCISCO — All major social media platforms are doing a poor job of protecting LGBTQ+ users from hate speech and harassment — especially those who are transgender, nonbinary or gender nonconforming, advocacy group GLAAD said Thursday. But Twitter is the worst.

In its annual Social Media Safety Index, GLAAD gave Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter low or bad scores, saying the platforms are not doing enough to keep their users safe. That said, most improved from a year ago.

Twitter, which was acquired by Tesla CEO Elon Musk last October, was the only exception. GLAAD’s scorecard called it “the most dangerous platform for LGBTQ people” and the one that saw its scores drop from last year – from 45% a year ago to 33%.

Twitter’s communications staff was wiped out after Musk acquired the company, and for months inquiries to the press service were answered only with an automated poop emoji response, as was the case when The Associated Press reached out to the company for comment.

LGBTQ+ advocates have long warned that online hate and harassment can lead to offline violence. But even if not, online abuse can take a toll on one’s mental health.

“Not a week goes by that we don’t have a doxxing situation for someone in our community that we need to come and help them stop it and stop the hatred, stop the vitriol and stop the attacks,” he said. GLAAD CEO and President Sarah Kate Ellis refers to the malicious practice of collecting personal or identifying information and releasing it online without the individual’s consent, usually in an attempt to harass, threaten, disgrace or retaliate. “It’s really amplified to a level we’ve never seen before.”

On Twitter, attacks against LGBTQ+ users have increased substantially since Elon Musk took over the company last fall, according to multiple advocacy groups.

Much of the reason is the drastic budget cuts Musk has made since taking over – there simply aren’t enough content moderators to handle the flood of problematic tweets ranging from hate speech to graphic material and harassment. Musk has also said he thinks Twitter’s previous policies were too restrictive.

For example, in April, Twitter quietly removed a policy against the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender people, raising concerns that the platform is becoming less safe for marginalized groups. Musk has also repeatedly interacted with far-right figures and pushed misinformation to his 143 million followers.

Twitter, as part of the same tweak to its site policies, has also changed the way it responds to tweets that violate its rules. While offensive tweets have been removed in the past, the company now says it will sometimes restrict a tweet rather than remove it from the platform altogether.

“Twitter is now largely a cesspool. You can’t post without being attacked. There is no room for conversation. It’s just about hand-to-hand combat,” Ellis said. “And that is it. It’s like backyard dogfights.”

Ellis lamented that prior to the acquisition, Twitter was a “leader” among major social media platforms when it comes to protecting LGBTQ+ users.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, saw a score increase of 15 percentage points for both platforms, to 61% and 63% respectively. The GLAAD index measures 12 LGBTQ+-specific indicators, such as explicit protections against hate and harassment for LGBTQ+ users, offering gender pronouns on profiles, and banning ads that could be harmful or discriminatory to LGBTQ+ people.

While Meta has improved and put in place strong policies, GLAAD says the company doesn’t enforce them consistently. For example, the group says that for many abusive messages it reports, Meta will send an automatic response stating that due to the high volume of reports it receives, it cannot review the message.

Meta said in a prepared statement that it is working with “civil society organizations around the world in our work to design policies and create tools that promote a safe online environment,” including getting input from LGBTQ+ safety and advocacy organizations.

TikTok, which saw its score rise by 14 points to 57%, said it “prouds to have strong policies aimed at protecting LGBTQ+ individuals from harassment and hate speech, including misgendering and deadnaming, and we are always on look to strengthen our approach informed by both our community and the advice of experts, such as GLAAD.”

Google’s YouTube, meanwhile, scored 54%, nine points more than in 2022.

“Our policy prohibits content that promotes violence or hatred against members of the LGBTQ+ community. In recent years, we’ve made significant progress in our ability to quickly remove this content from our platform and feature authoritative sources prominently in search results and recommendations,” said spokesperson Jack Malon.

Musk has repeatedly said in tweets and public statements that he supports free speech, calling himself a “free speech absolutist” who wants to make Twitter a “digital city square” where people of different views can freely debate. The company’s newly installed CEO Linda Yaccarino also recently tweeted that “you should be free to say what you think. We should all do that.’

But GLAAD and other organizations advocating for marginalized groups note that unfettered freedom for one group can encroach on the freedom of speech of others.

“Free speech doesn’t mean I can relentlessly bully and harass people,” said Jenni Olson, GLAAD’s director of social media safety. “And that’s why companies have anti-hate policies because … if someone bullies and harass me, it basically means I don’t have freedom of speech because I’m afraid to speak up.”

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