Meta has relaxed its rules on hate speech and abuse, particularly concerning sexual orientation, gender identity, and immigration status, echoing similar moves made by Elon Musk’s X.
The decision has raised alarm among advocates for vulnerable communities, who warn that scaling back content moderation could result in real-world harm. On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the changes, stating the company would “remove restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse,” pointing to “recent elections” as a driving factor.
“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’,” Meta added to its rules.
This change now permits labeling gay individuals as mentally ill on platforms like Facebook, Threads, and Instagram. However, Meta continues to ban slurs and harmful stereotypes historically linked to intimidation, including Blackface and Holocaust denial.
“I shudder to think what these changes will mean for our youth, Meta is abdicating their responsibility to safety, and we won’t know the impact of these changes because Meta refuses to be transparent about the harms teenagers experience, and they go to extraordinary lengths to dilute or stop legislation that could help,” Arturo Béjar, a former engineering director at Meta known for his work on reducing online harassment, said, according to The Associated Press.
Fact-Checking Halt Sparks Employee Concerns
This move comes as Meta announced its decision to terminate third-party fact-checking on its platforms just two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Meta employees expressed concern following the announcement by Joel Kaplan, the company’s new chief global affairs officer and former White House deputy chief of staff under President George W. Bush. Kaplan revealed the content policy changes on Workplace, Meta’s internal communications platform.
“We’re optimistic that these changes help us return to that fundamental commitment to free expression,” Kaplan wrote in the post.
One worker wrote they were “extremely concerned” about the decision, adding that it appears Meta is “sending a bigger, stronger message to people that facts no longer matter, and conflating that with a victory for free speech.”
Another employee commented that “simply absolving ourselves from the duty to at least try to create a safe and respective platform is a really sad direction to take.”
