A media watchdog organization claims Facebook and Instagram allowed anti-LGBTQ content and misinformation to flourish during pride month.
A recent study conducted by Media Matters for America, which monitors right-wing misinformation in media, claims that Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, allowed over 3,000 homophobic or transphobic posts to remain on its platforms during June, despite policies allegedly prohibiting hateful speech and anti-LGBTQ attacks.
“Facebook and its parent company Meta had eagerly promoted Pride Month, adding Pride features on the platform, claiming to amplify LGBTQ creators, and reiterating the company’s supposed commitment to supporting LGBTQ people and to eliminating hate speech targeting them,” the report reads. “But Facebook has regularly failed to remove the dangerous and dehumanizing hate speech and misinformation targeting LGBTQ people coming from right-wing outlets, figures, and groups.”
A large amount of the hateful posts were made by right-wing media outlets, the study found. Over 40% of these posts were coming from three pages alone: The Blaze, The Western Journal, and The Daily Wire — all conservative outlets that frequently criticize recognition of LGBTQ rights, especially transgender rights.
According the Media Matters, the sites would post a story with an anti-LGBTQ slant or sensationalizing certain developments related to LGBTQ issues, which would then be picked up by smaller right-wing accounts, giving it more exposure and interactions. The pages also utilized right-wing celebrities like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ben Shapiro to increase web traffic and interaction with posts.
“Typically they use the algorithm and these networks of pages to amplify this content that maybe they put on their website, but then is amplified on Facebook,” Kayla Gogarty, the deputy research director for Media Matters.
Gogarty explained that these pages began to ramp up anti-LGBTQ content just as Florida passed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The sensationalist stories attacking LGBTQ people have utilized Facebook’s systems to amplify their voices, despite complaints from LGBTQ advocates that the algorithm is promoting hateful and wrong information.
“We’ve seen Facebook purposely decide not to tweak an algorithm so that [places like] The Daily Wire are not upset,” she said. “Profit is very clearly their number one priority.”
The study also claims that anti-LGBTQ posts have real consequences. Right-wing media channels on the platform are creating unsafe narratives surrounding LGBTQ people, claiming that they are “predators” who are “grooming” children, either to make them become gay or trans themselves or to encourage them to partake in sexual activity by bombarding them with sexually-explicit content.
These conspiracy theories and homophobic attacks have caused multiple LGBTQ-themed events across the country to be disrupted or threatened by right-wing, anti-LGBTQ, and neo-Nazi activists or canceled in response to threats of violence.
According to Media Matters, more than 350 of the over 3,000 posts total found on these pages targeting the LGBTQ community used sensationalized stories on drag queen events and children’s safety. These stories falsely portray drag queens as predators and have caused an increase in confrontations at these events, includingthe Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group that tries to provoke political violence, storming a library over a Drag Queen Story Hour, and protesting outside of another library for a similar event.
The issue is not confined to Facebook either, Media Matters argues. Just as Meta began to post resources for LGBTQ people during pride, Instagram, which is also owned by Meta, saw a major uptick in anti-LGBTQ content.
“Despite Meta’s newly announced resources, Instagram has allowed its users to spread propaganda against the LGBTQ community — and even against the same individuals it’s publicly celebrating,” the report said.
The report argues that anti-LGBTQ misinformation shapes opinions of not only conservative activists, but lawmakers, who then propose legislation targeting the LGBTQ community. It claims this legislation could lead to more oppressive laws, and has already resulted in anti-LGBTQ legislation or executive orders in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi.
“The false narratives right-wing figures are spinning to support these bills are being projected through online platforms and news outlets and have already led to real-world harm,” Media Matters claims.
Meta declined an interview, but responded to the allegations of anti-LGBTQ content, writing in an email to Metro Weekly: “We’ve investigated and removed the content that violates our policies.”
A solution to escalating anti-LGBTQ content on their sites starts with a simple “tweak,” followed by decisive action Meta should have taken as the posts came to light, says Gogarty.
“They need to tweak down this sensational and divisive content that’s currently rewarded from its algorithm. Obviously, accurate information is more important,” Gogarty said. “There are policies against this sort of speech. And they’re either very narrowly interpreting that policy, or just flat out not enforcing it.”
Anti-LGBTQ trolls have blamed openly gay Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for a bridge collapse in Baltimore believed to have killed six people after it was hit by a 95,000-ton cargo ship.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after the Dali, a 985-foot container ship flying the Singapore flag, crashed into the bridge's reinforced concrete support pier.
The container ship, which was traveling at about 9 miles per hour, lost both engine power and electrical power to its control and communications systems minutes before it crashed into the bridge stanchion.
Charade is an incredible movie. Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant in early 1960s Paris. A murder, a missing fortune, a cast of luminaries beyond Hepburn and Grant, and a soundtrack by Henry Mancini. It's so good.
And that dialogue! Among the best lines comes from Hepburn's Regina Lampert, complaining to friend Sylvie about the state of her lackluster marriage. Sylvie advises that this season's fashions could help her meet -- ahem -- new "friends" to take her mind off her hollow marriage. Regina, an American transplant to France, responds, "I admit I came to Paris to escape 'American provincial,' but that doesn't mean I'm ready for 'French traditional.'" So good!
Actor and author Maulik Pancholy posted a video to Instagram thanking followers for their expressions of support after a Pennsylvania school board canceled a speech he was scheduled to give as part of an anti-bullying school assembly.
On April 15, the Cumberland Valley School District school board voted unanimously to cancel the assembly, scheduled for May 22 at Mountain View Middle School in Mechanicsburg, a town of 9,000 people just 10 miles west of Harrisburg.
Members of the conservative board claimed that it was Pancholy's "lifestyle" that led them to cancel the assembly.
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