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GLAAD publishes Hollywood celebrities letter to tech companies asking censorship of anti-transgender speech
June 27, 2023
To:
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Platforms, Inc.
Neal Mohan, YouTube/Alphabet Inc.
Shou Zi Chew, TikTok/ ByteDance Ltd.
Linda Yaccarino and Elon Musk, Twitter, Inc./X Corp
As celebrities, influencers, and prominent public figures with significant followings on social media, we the undersigned are calling on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter to fulfill the promises you’ve made to transgender, nonbinary, gender non-conforming and all LGBTQ users in your terms of service. There has been a massive systemic failure to prohibit hate, harassment, and malicious anti-LGBTQ disinformation on your platforms and it must be addressed.
Dangerous posts (both content and ads) created and circulated by high-follower anti-LGBTQ hate accounts targeting transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming people are thriving across your platforms, directly resulting in terrifying real-life1 harm2 including bomb threats3 targeting children’s hospitals that offer healthcare for trans youth, and death threats4 targeting care providers.5 Such false and hate-driven widely circulated content on your platforms is even being cited by lawmakers advancing discriminatory legislation against trans people.6 Targeted misgendering and deadnaming of trans and nonbinary people is a widespread mode of hate speech7 across all platforms, utilized to bully and harass prominent public figures while simultaneously expressing hatred and contempt for trans and non-binary people in general.8
This disinformation and hate, inadequately moderated on your platforms, plays an outsized role in the sharp increase in real-world anti-transgender targeting and violence.9 As documented by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in 2022,10 this is particularly the case when it comes to the online extremists leading proactive coordinated campaigns of hate and lies about gender affirming healthcare for trans youth.11 Despite the fact that every leading medical and psychological association affirms the safety and necessity of gender affirming healthcare for trans people, including youth, inflammatory disinformation falsely asserting that this healthcare is dangerous is allowed to fester on your platforms because it drives clicks and profit. Trans youth and their families and care providers are being endangered by your negligence, causing many families to flee their homes.12
Your policies and corresponding enforcement are inadequate when it comes to mitigating harmful and dangerous anti-LGBTQ content. You must urgently take action to protect trans and LGBTQ users on your platforms (including protecting us from over-enforcement and censorship).
We call for you to meet with community leaders and creators to hear about these real world harms that result from anti-trans content on your platforms — and to create and share plans for how you will address:
cont...
https://glaad.org/lgbtq-celebrities-allies-letter-facebook-instagram-youtube-tiktok-twitter-anti-trans-hate-disinformation