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 it 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 allow claims 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 use of words like ‘queer,'” revised company guidelines read.

The new hate speech guidelines are part of Meta’s broader major changes to how it moderates online speech on its platforms. On Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it 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” about other people’s content, and then certain users vote on whether or not the notes appear publicly. Zuckerberg cited “recent elections” and “a cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech.”

The long list of changes to the new hate speech guidelines include removing rules that prohibit insults about a person’s appearance based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and serious illness. Meta also scrapped policies that prohibited expressions of hatred against a person or group based on their protected class, and that prohibited users from referring to transgender or non-binary people as “it.”

GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group, condemned the changes.

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

A spokesman for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CEOs and business leaders in technology and beyond are expanding their efforts 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 — who donated $1 million to Trump’s second inaugural fund in the past few weeks. Meta also announced Tuesday that UFC’s Dana White, a longtime Trump supporter, would join its board of directors.