Meta’s new hate speech rules allow users to call LGBTQ people mentally ill

Meta will allow its billions of social media users to accuse people of being mentally ill based on their sexuality or gender identity, among broader changes made to its moderation policies and practices on Tuesday.

The company’s new guidelines prohibit insults about someone’s intellect or mental illness on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as have previous iterations. However, the latest guidelines now include a caveat for accusing LGBTQ people of being mentally ill because they are gay or transgender. 

“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,’” the revised company guidelines read.

The new guidelines around hate speech are part of its broader major changes regarding how it moderates online speech on its platforms. On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company will replace its fact-checking program which has relied on trusted organizational partners with a community-driven system similar to X’s Community Notes. X’s system allows users to submit suggested “notes” on other people’s content, and then certain users vote on whether or not the note gets publicly displayed. Zuckerberg cited “recent elections” and “a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech.”

Among the long list of changes to its new hate speech guidelines is the removal of rules that forbid insults about a person’s physical appearance based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, and serious disease. Meta also scrapped previous policies that prohibited expressions of hate against a person or a group of people on the basis of their protected class and that banned users from referring to transgender or non-binary people as “it.”

GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group, denounced the new changes.

“Without these necessary hate speech and other policies, Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanizing narratives,” said GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis in a statement. “With these changes, Meta is continuing to normalize anti-LGBTQ hatred for profit — at the expense of its users and true freedom of expression. Fact-checking and hate speech policies protect free speech.”

A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately return a request for comment. 

The social media giant’s policy changes come amid a broader effort by CEOs and business leaders in tech and beyond to woo President-elect Donald Trump. Meta is among the several tech companies and executives — including Amazon, Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — that donated $1 million to Trump’s second inaugural fund within the last several weeks. Meta also announced on Tuesday that UFC’s Dana White, a long-time Trump supporter, would join its board.