Major social media platforms failing to meet ‘basic standards' of safety for LGBTQ users: GLAAD
Six of the nation's leading social media platforms are failing to keep LGBTQ users safe from online bullying and harassment and quell the spread of disinformation, according to a new report from GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group.
Now in its fifth year, GLAAD's Social Media Safety Index evaluates policies and product features of TikTok, X, YouTube, and Meta's Instagram, Facebook and Threads on more than a dozen LGBTQ-specific indicators, including whether platforms have public-facing policies against deadnaming and misgendering or regulations preventing users from engaging in hate speech that targets LGBTQ people.
The social media landscape has shifted drastically since the group published its first report in 2021, said Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD's president and CEO, 'with new and dangerous challenges in 2025.'
In January, Meta, owned by Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, dropped some of its rules protecting LGBTQ people, allowing users to share 'allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.'
The updated language, part of a broader overhaul of the social media giant's content moderation practices, also permits users to argue for 'gender-based limitations of military, law enforcement, and teaching jobs' and sex- or gender-based exclusion from spaces like restrooms and sports.
'What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it's gone too far,' Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the new policies. He said the November elections, which saw Republicans retake control of Congress and the White House, 'feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech.'
President Trump celebrated the updated policies, which included eliminating the company's third-party fact-checking program.
In its report on Tuesday, GLAAD called the changes at Meta 'draconian' and said the company should restore sections of its hateful conduct policy that shielded LGBTQ people from harassment. The group said it was also 'deeply concerned' about what it said was a similar policy shift at YouTube, which removed gender identity and expression from its hate speech policy's list of protected characteristics last month.
In a post on X, the social platform owned by billionaire and Trump White House adviser Elon Musk, YouTube said it removed that language as part of a 'routine' copy edit to its Help Center, and its policy against hate speech had not changed. YouTube's public-facing policy states it does not allow content that promotes violence or hatred against individuals based on 'Sex, Gender, or Sexual Orientation.'
Each of the six platforms failed to pass GLAAD's evaluation, with TikTok scoring the highest, 56 out of a possible 100, and X, at 30, scoring the lowest.
A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment on GLAAD's findings. Representatives for X, YouTube and Meta did not return requests for comment.
'At a time when real-world violence and harassment against LGBTQ people is on the rise, social media companies are profiting from the flames of anti-LGBTQ hate instead of ensuring the basic safety of LGBTQ users,' Ellis said in a statement Tuesday. 'These low scores should terrify anyone who cares about creating safer, more inclusive online spaces.'
GLAAD acknowledged Tuesday in its report that some companies have worked to make LGBTQ users, particularly transgender users, safer on their platforms.
TikTok's hate and harassment policies, for instance, 'provide the most comprehensive protections for LGBTQ people,' according to the group's report, including a prohibition on intentional deadnaming and misgendering, and YouTube this year rolled back a policy that allowed advertisers to exclude some users from seeing ads based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Advertisers on YouTube are also prohibited from promoting conversion therapy, a discredited practice that aims to change a person's gender identity or sexual orientation, but the platform has not adopted a similar policy for individual users, according to GLAAD.
While it ranked lowest on the organization's scorecard, X is one of just two platforms — the other being TikTok — that prohibit both targeted misgendering and deadnaming, though that protection is granted only 'where required by local laws,' according to X's abuse and harassment policies. The company also 'must always hear from the target' to determine whether a violation has occurred, effectively requiring targeted individuals to engage with and report content that might be against the rules.
Jenni Olson, GLAAD's senior director of social media safety, said tech companies 'are taking unprecedented leaps backwards' in their policies regarding targeted harassment.
'This is not normal,' she said in a statement. 'Our communities deserve to live in a world that does not generate or profit off of hate.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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