A prominent LGBT activist group on Wednesday argued that social media platforms are not "safe" for "LGBTQ users" and called for increased censorship of right-wing content as a remedy.
GLAAD, an NGO that formally collaborates with Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok and works to "accelerate acceptance" of the "LGBTQ community," called on tech companies to amend their algorithms so they don’t "amplify harmful content, extremism and hate." GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis singled out narratives advocated by "right wing media and politicians" as threats warranting content moderation. The group urged social media companies to prohibit individuals from referring to transgender individuals by their biological pronouns and using their pre-transition names.
GLAAD issued its call for censorship in its annual "Social Media Safety Index" report, which "provides recommendations for the industry at large and reports on LGBTQ user safety across the five major social media platforms."
"While Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and other platforms must balance concerns around free expression," GLAAD said in the report, "it cannot be stated strongly enough that social media platforms must take more meaningful and aggressive action to protect the safety of their LGBTQ users and to staunch the epidemic of hate, falsehoods, and extremism."
According to GLAAD, opposition to giving hormone treatment and puberty blockers to children qualifies as the "promotion of falsehoods" and "disinformation."
The organization called people who opposed them on social media "troll-cum-pundits" and accused artificial intelligence of being biased against "LGBTQ people and other marginalized communities."
Psychologist Jordan Peterson was suspended from Twitter last month after he referred to female-to-male transgender actor Elliot Page as "Ellen," the celebrity's former name. Several other influential conservative accounts have been suspended for questioning gender ideology. GLAAD claims that gay and transgender people are censored disproportionately on social media.
Every social media platform rated by GLAAD in the report scored under 50 on a scale of 100 for "LGBTQ safety." Instagram scored the highest and TikTok the lowest. One category used to determine how safe a website was for gay people is whether it had a dedicated feature for users to list their pronouns on their profiles.