this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025

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Meta now lets users say gay and trans people have ‘mental illness’ (www.wired.com)

submitted 1 day ago by Emperor@feddit.uk to c/news@lemmy.world

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Meta announced a series of major updates to its content moderation policies today, including ending its fact-checking partnerships and “getting rid” of restrictions on speech about “topics like immigration, gender identity and gender” that the company describes as frequent subjects of political discourse and debate. “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms,” Meta’s newly appointed chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, wrote in a blog post outlining the changes.

In an accompanying video, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the company’s current rules in these areas as “just out of touch with mainstream discourse.”

In tandem with this announcement, the company made a number of updates across its Community Guidelines, an extensive set of rules that outline what kinds of content are prohibited on Meta’s platforms, including Instagram, Threads, and Facebook. Some of the most striking changes were made to Meta’s “Hateful Conduct” policy, which covers discussions on immigration and gender.

In a notable shift, the company now says it allows “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.’”

In other words, Meta now appears to permit users to accuse transgender or gay people of being mentally ill because of their gender expression and sexual orientation. The company did not respond to requests for clarification on the policy.

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[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Meta sucks and allowing accusations of mental illness is shitty.

That said, "allegations of abnormality" and "weird" are hard to take issue with. There is nothing at all wrong with being gay or trans, but by the numbers it is absolutely "weird" and "abnormal". This is exactly what the word "queer" means, by definition.

Accusing of mental illness is reproachable, but weird and abnormal are both accurate. You no what else is abnormal? Being exceptional. These are not bad conditions to find yourself in, but neither are they "normal" by population.

[–] asunaspersonalasst@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago

Being an executive of Meta who succumb to conservashit rhetoric is a mental ilness.

[–] Dupree878@lemmy.world 8 points 9 hours ago

I’ve always seen people say and post this. The fact checking was selectively enforced. Better to have none than a half assed attempt

[–] satans_methpipe@lemmy.world 10 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

People need to get a grip. This really feels like mass psychosis.

Walk into Nazi bar.
Pay dues to be a member (consume advertising, provide personal data).
Be astonished at the fascist rhetoric of the Nazi bar!

If it were possible it would be fascinating to study the brains of people who do this. Is it old scar tissue from physical blows? Lesions from infections or illness? Just too much drugs and alcohol? Perhaps it's a vascular issue from failing organs and too much salt? Food dye, radiation, lead?

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Comparing Facebook to a Nazi bar is ridiculous.

Facebook, just like all social media companies, has continually used the overton window as its standard for acceptable content. When political leanings shift, the way the company polices content on its platform, chooses what topics to boost or bury, and decides what topics to promote as part of its corporate culture changes.

It is by its very nature the thing that maximizes the political acceptableness of content for advertisers to appear next to. Most people joined Facebook when the political climate was nowhere near as right-wing as it is now, so it's not like they walked in, saw a sign that said "We're Nazis" and went "okay, this is fine."

The fact they're changing their hateful conduct policy now is what's turning them into the Nazi bar, they weren't always that way. (and yes, I'm aware Facebook and Zuck did tons of horrible shit in the past, but as a platform it wasn't anywhere near the level of terrible it will be now, nor did it have anywhere near Nazi levels of political leanings)

And not to mention how the network effect kind of changes this from "Nazi Bar" to "Nazi City" because it has a much more difficult process to escape due to it quite literally holding you and all your friends, family, photos, and videos hostage. There's less of a choice when it comes to leaving platforms that ensnare you with network effects than there is to simply leave a bar.

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Comparing Facebook to a Nazi bar is ridiculous.

not really considering meta has several nazis on their board.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 2 points 4 hours ago

Who exactly? At present I'm wholly unaware of anybody on the FB board who I'd call a Nazi.

I'm genuinely asking by the way, that isn't meant to be some kind of rebuttal.

However, I would again note the fact that any current board members were likely not on the board when many Facebook users joined, (and the lock-in they experience keeps them there) and even if they were, what kind of person is ever aware of individual corporate board members?

Extrapolating that back out to your Nazi bar analogy, that would be like if you went into a bar, the people in there were your friends and family, the workers at the front were normal people, but the person who owned the LLC behind the bar was a Nazi. In that case, to "be astonished at the fascist rhetoric of the Nazi bar" isn't exactly unexpected!

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

“getting rid” of restrictions on speech about “topics like immigration, gender identity and gender” that the company describes as frequent subjects of political discourse and debate. “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms,”

Yet when my mom tried to post about a museum visit, Facebook wouldn't let her because it contained the word "Lenin". Interesting.

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[–] MiDaBa@lemmy.ml 13 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

META is failing. Mark is bending the knee because that's his only move.

[–] dx1@lemmy.world 6 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Joel David Kaplan (born 1969) is an American political advisor, lobbyist, and attorney. In January 2025, it was announced that Kaplan will become the president of global affairs of Meta Platforms, owner of Facebook, in Spring 2025.[1][2][3] He has been the company's vice president of global public policy since 2011.

A longtime Republican political operative, Kaplan served eight years in the George W. Bush administration, including as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.[4]

Embarrassing no matter what your politics are. The fuck is the former White House Deputy Chief of Staff (the successor of Karl Rove under GWB, ffs) doing at Facebook? Did the job offer to Hitler fall through?

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[–] manicdave@feddit.uk 23 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Presumably they'll roll back their censorship of Palestinian journalists now they love free speech so much.

[–] AprilShowers@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

you see, free speech is only for reactionaries.

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 13 hours ago

That's pretty much what conservative/right-wing 'freedom' is: freedom for me but not for thee.

[–] 31337@sh.itjust.works 21 points 15 hours ago

He praised X, a competitor, in his video announcement. I guess Musk was right. "Zuck is a cuck."

[–] DicJacobus@lemmy.world 30 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

I stopped letting Meta take my attention once they started making my feed fill itself with "reccomended" "you might like" pages and profiles that I at no point ever clicked on or searched for.

before, my feed was exclusively my friends content, and pages I followed.

now, they fill the gaps with evangelicals, gambling, and idiots posting chinese and russian war propaganda.

yup, get the fuck out. im done.

[–] Soleos@lemmy.world 8 points 14 hours ago

Oh it's a complete ghost town. Absolutely useless as actual social media. I suppose you could try starring/favoriting all your friends lol...

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 10 points 15 hours ago (4 children)

My entire feed is just nonsense now. Last year a guy I knew from my Warcraft days had cancer while a relative in Canada had a baby.

They both posted these things on Facebook.

What Facebook showed me was constant spam, so now I just see chess puzzle channels from India, street cooking videos from places with no hygiene laws, magic eye pictures and retro games. I've never asked it for any of these things, yet some algorithm detected I paused for a millisecond while scrolling past them so now that's all I get. Fuck the people I know, right?

It used to be useful for exactly one thing and it can't even do that any more. The only way you can actually see a proper feed without spam is to go into a person/group's profile directly.

[–] crossdl@leminal.space 3 points 9 hours ago

I decided I was going to discontinue using Meta products except to put out an occasional Instagram photo, pushed to Facebook, to tell...people I don't even talk to anymore, and for good reason...that I was alive and a sight of what I was doing. I discontinued my old Facebook profile and made a new one only for this purpose.

Because Facebook kind of sees me as a new user, I'm able to see content I wasn't able to before. And fuck, that place feels like some weird scam and bot flea market.

I hope it's soon to die but who knows if it'll transform into some unmasked arm of the government for surveillance.

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[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 44 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

You can now refer to women as property on Facebook and they are A-OK with that! But you will, and it has happened to me, catch an instant ban if you say all men are trash.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 8 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

Maybe it's just me but I don't think people should be saying or be allowed to say either of those two things. Neither of those two things are good for anyone.

[–] davepleasebehave@lemmy.world 19 points 16 hours ago

I suppose that was ops point

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[–] inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 17 hours ago

“It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms,” Meta’s newly appointed chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, wrote in a blog post outlining the changes.

This is the same Joel Kaplan that participated in the brooks brothers riot stopping the recount of the ballots during the bush v gore election in 2000 where the republicans stole the election forever changing the course of American history.

[–] RedBauble@sh.itjust.works 57 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

I'll bite. Meta, obviously, never actually cared about free speech. Zuckerberg also said that they are about to flood the platforms with AI bots to increase engagement. I'd say getting rid of fact checkers is only to avoid having their own bots automatically brought down by their own moderation. The rest is a façade

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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 20 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Facebook is a shitty place to be. In related "no shit, sherlock" news, the sun is still hot.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.world 8 points 17 hours ago

I agree but the problem is that there is a huge percentage of the population that use this dumb site as a way to collect and gather all their information about the world. The problem is not so much that fb changed, the problem is that so many people rely on it.

[–] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 108 points 1 day ago (1 children)

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 15 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

It's also his first mammalian penis

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