How Meta’s policy updates could encourage hate and threaten democracy

By Lindsey Shelton | Read the full story here

Friend,

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced significant changes to how the company will moderate its social media content. The changes could have far-reaching and dire effects for democracy and for people who have historically been targeted by online hate, experts and advocates say.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, revised its “hateful conduct” policy to remove the term “hate speech” and protections against online hate targeted at LGBTQ+ people, women, immigrants, people of color and other groups. Advocacy group GLAAD cited some examples of language that is now permitted on the platforms, including:

• Claims that LGBTQ+ people are “mentally ill” or “abnormal.”

• Calling trans and nonbinary people “it.”

• References to “women as household objects or property.”

Meta is also ending its program that enlisted third-party fact-checking partners to flag content that did not pass fact checks. Zuckerberg said in a video announcement that “fact-checkers have been too politically biased” and have “destroyed more than they created,” echoing language President Donald Trump and other Republicans have used for years to attack fact-checking. The New York Times reported that fact-checking groups who worked with Meta took issue with Zuckerberg’s characterization and said “they had no role in deciding what the company did with the content that was fact-checked.”

Meta will now employ a “Community Notes” model that relies on users to submit information about content and does not apply to paid ads. The network X, formerly Twitter, also uses a community notes model.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and other civil and human rights organizations are concerned that Meta’s new approach will endanger democracy and the safety of users.

Sincerely,

Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center

The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people.

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