Meta rolls back hate speech rules

It wasnt just factchecking that Meta scrapped from its platforms as it prepares for the second Trump administration The social media giant has also loosened its rules around hate speech and abuse again following the lead of Elon Musks X specifically when it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity as well as immigration statusThe changes are worrying advocates for vulnerable groups who say Metas decision to scale back content moderation could lead to realword harms Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday that the company will remove restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse citing recent elections as a catalyst For instance Meta has added the following to its rules called community standards that users are asked to abide byWe do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common nonserious usage of words like weird In other words it is now permitted to call gay people mentally ill on Facebook Threads and Instagram Other slurs and what Meta calls harmful stereotypes historically linked to intimidation such as Blackface and Holocaust denial are still prohibitedThe Menlo Park Californiabased company also removed a sentence from its policy rationale explaining why it bans certain hateful conduct The nowdeleted sentence said that hate speech creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion and in some cases may promote offline violenceThe policy change is a tactic to earn favour with the incoming administration while also reducing business costs related to content moderation said Ben Leiner a lecturer at the University of Virginias Darden School of Business who studies political and technology trends This decision will lead to realworld harm not only in the United States where there has been an uptick in hate speech and disinformation on social media platforms but also abroad where disinformation on Facebook has accelerated ethnic conflict in places like MyanmarMeta in fact acknowledged in 2018 that it didnt do enough to prevent its platform from being used to incite offline violence in Myanmar fueling communal hatred and violence against the countrys Muslim Rohingya minority Arturo Beacutejar a former engineering director at Meta known for his expertise on curbing online harassment said while most of the attention has gone to the companys factchecking announcement Tuesday he is more worried about the changes to Metas harmful content policiesThats because instead of proactively enforcing rules against things like selfharm bullying and harassment Meta will now rely on user reports before it takes any action The company said it plans to focus its automated systems on tackling illegal and highseverity violations like terrorism child sexual exploitation drugs fraud and scams Beacutejar said thats even though Meta knows that by the time a report is submitted and reviewed the content will have done most of its harmI shudder to think what these changes will mean for our youth Meta is abdicating their responsibility to safety and we wont the impact of these changes because Meta refuses to be transparent about the harms teenagers experience and they go to extraordinary lengths to dilute or stop legislation that could help he saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever