Meta announced a series of major updates to its content moderation policies today, including ending its fact-checking partnerships and “getting rid” of restrictions on speech about “topics like immigration, gender identity and gender” that the company describes as frequent subjects of political discourse and debate. “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms,” Meta’s newly appointed chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, wrote in a blog post outlining the changes.
In an accompanying video, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the company’s current rules in these areas as “just out of touch with mainstream discourse.”
In tandem with this announcement, the company made a number of updates across its Community Guidelines, an extensive set of rules that outline what kinds of content are prohibited on Meta’s platforms, including Instagram, Threads, and Facebook. Some of the most striking changes were made to Meta’s “Hateful Conduct” policy, which covers discussions on immigration and gender.
In a notable shift, the company now says it allows “allegations 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 usage of words like ‘weird.’”
In other words, Meta now appears to permit users to accuse transgender or gay people of being mentally ill because of their gender expression and sexual orientation. The company did not respond to requests for clarification on the policy.
Reminder to get off Facebook and Instagram
This isn’t the first time they’ve pulled stuff like this nor will it be the last
Reminder to get off Facebook and Instagram
Most of us are already out or lurking because of family or some specific group they can’t do without.
The trick will be getting those people off the platform so we can cut all cords.
Excuses…
Yeah the answer is to delete your account and find alternative messengers for people you actually care about. Others that care will follow.
Businesses need to bring back email newsletters. And whatever celebrities or whatnot you care about need to too. The only reason I signed back up for either of those sites was to follow a local business for updates/sales/etc.
Facebook has about 3 billion users across the globe. That’s just 500 million short of half the human population of the planet. At its height Twitter was around 360 million. And it’s user base has only shrunk by 30 million or so since the douche bag took it over.
Facebook, on the other hand, has dug its hooks into everyone’s personal lives to a point at which getting them to ditch Facebook would be like telling everyone to basically ditch their friends and family. No one is going to do that.
Twitter was an add-on. It was an extra. You could use it or not, nobody cared. It hadn’t built a large enough user base to be so integral to people’s social lives. TikTok, in about half the time twitter has existed, has basically eclipsed it in terms of monthly active users.
We have to accept this fact, Facebook has become an institution. And it should scare literally everyone that such a huge and powerful platform is owned by one single person with no real oversight whatsoever. That is why he was able to unilaterally decide to first censor Facebook at the beginning of the election and now uncensor it once an oligarch friendly president has been elected.
Everyone’s so focused on DElon Husk’s role in getting Trump elected, but all Zuckerberg needed to do was shut down the discourse on his platform so that the news couldn’t flow. And now he’s adopting the policies of Xwitter in an effort to win some favoritism from the incoming administration.
So, what is your solution, given the facts and the reality of the matter?
There is none currently. You’re free to continue to advocate dropping Meta products, but don’t hold your breath. Ideally we would have some kind of government intervention to break up the monopoly that is Meta or some form of regulation to reign in their behavior, but none of our politicians care to bother and unfortunately, with the party coming into power in our government, there’s little hope any kind of regulation on any monopolistic corporations. With our last election the American people have chosen to package themselves up and give themselves over to the corporate overlords.
So what you’re saying is, There Is No Alternative?
There is disruptive behavior.
I ditched facebook. Just means my friends and family have to call me. And if they don’t, fuck em.
Meta went all in on the VR Metaverse to woo the next generation and just shot themselves in the foot.
VR Metaverse would have worked if they let people have legs.
Meta would not have liked WHY it would have worked, however…
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Have a gander folks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Criticisms_and_controversies
In other words, Meta now appears to permit users to accuse transgender or gay people of being mentally ill because of their gender expression and sexual orientation.
This is nothing new. They’ve never cared about hate speech or taken it seriously, they’re just admitting it now.
Some of them do have mental illness, just like some straight people have mental illness
The issue is, people want to argue LGBTQ+ people are like that due to mental illness, and thus either need to be corrected through torture usually disguised as treatment, or must be removed from society and/or the genepool.
the company now says it allows “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation”
“trans people disproportionately face mental health concerns including depression and anxiety” ✅ OK in my book
“you are trans, so you are mentally ill” ❌ reductive, hateful, and a flat out lie, but approved by Meta now apparently
Isn’t that the same thing just said nicely vs not nicely
It is only the same thing if you are under the mistaken belief that all trans people are mentally ill. Is that what you believe?
No but I believe a higher percentage of trans people are mentally ill than non trans people.
Why do you believe it? Did Jesus tell you?
Because there has been clear and consistent data on this
Feel free to present this clear and consistent data along with the methodology.
Like fuckerburg
I also love how someone actually got offended and downvoted you for saying literal fact that a human, can have mental illness.
Everything gets downvoted on lemmy, that’s why I turned off downvoting in preferences and it’s a way better experience.
Ohh you can do that? I should check if jebroa has it too, not like downvotes usually bother me.
It’s in your profile settings. It should apply everywhere.
It obviously does hurt your feelings if you are actively seeking ways to block seeing downvotes lmao.
I don’t think it’s weird to want to avoid needless negativity.
“Actively seeking ways” lol it’s 2 clicks to accomplish permanently
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Not everyone I meet is an asshole. There are a lot of them here though, likely including yourself.
It feels like the statements about the removal of fact-checking (which is all I heard about on the news) is misdirection, so the changes made deep in their policy documents get less attention than they deserve.
Delete it
Meta sucks and allowing accusations of mental illness is shitty.
That said, “allegations of abnormality” and “weird” are hard to take issue with. There is nothing at all wrong with being gay or trans, but by the numbers it is absolutely “weird” and “abnormal”. This is exactly what the word “queer” means, by definition.
Accusing of mental illness is reproachable, but weird and abnormal are both accurate. You no what else is abnormal? Being exceptional. These are not bad conditions to find yourself in, but neither are they “normal” by population.
Don’t equate “weird” and “abnormal” here? One word has an exclusively negative connotation, the other is a much more considered, clinical word.
They are not the same thing
No?
Top definitions by Merriam Webster for weird:
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Of strange or extraordinary character: Odd, Fantastic
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of, relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural: Magical
People use either of these words to mean something negative, just like they do for any word that implies being different from the majority. That doesn’t change their definitions though.
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Id bet Mark Zuckerberg has mental illness. Having the level of wealth that he has makes connecting with common people nigh impossible and leaves his pool of potential friends limited a handful of people who themselves focus on hoarding wealth that they don’t even have any real use for.
Getting used to the power and comfort his billions give him means he has to worry about one day losing what he has attained, and forces him to justify to himself the possession of so much wealth while others starve.
I see no way someone can exist in that space for years on end without it warping their sanity into an uncaring money hoarder obsessed with making his numbers higher.
I don’t think anyone who is so out of touch with reality could be sane.
Id bet Mark Zuckerberg has mental illness. Having the level of wealth that he has makes connecting with common people nigh impossible and leaves his pool of potential friends limited a handful of people who themselves focus on hoarding wealth that they don’t even have any real use for.
I don’t think you can truly become a billionaire without having some sort of problems. That amount of money is so unfathomably large you can’t achieve it without exploitation on some level or another. Obviously people might use and abuse one another unintentionally, but when you’ve done so economically to the degree of earning billions?
I would agree:
These are some common signs of ASPD:
Lack of empathy for others Impulsive behavior Attempting to control others with threats or aggression Using intelligence, charm, or charisma to manipulate others Not learning from mistakes or punishment Lying for personal gain Showing a tendency toward physical violence and fights Generally superficial relationships Sometimes, stealing or committing other crimes…
At this rate, someday guys may be able to joke around again
This post is a work of satire
I’ll bite. Meta, obviously, never actually cared about free speech. Zuckerberg also said that they are about to flood the platforms with AI bots to increase engagement. I’d say getting rid of fact checkers is only to avoid having their own bots automatically brought down by their own moderation. The rest is a façade
Astute observation. I’m glad I stopped using the platform years ago but it seems like they’re focused on trying to innovate their tech more than the actual engagement.
More exploitation of the seniors who are the few people left
“getting rid” of restrictions on speech about “topics like immigration, gender identity and gender” that the company describes as frequent subjects of political discourse and debate. “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms,”
Yet when my mom tried to post about a museum visit, Facebook wouldn’t let her because it contained the word “Lenin”. Interesting.
Can you elaborate?
Someone with a Facebook account wanna go make a post with Lenin and see if another account can view it lmao
Not much to elaborate here, the situation was what I described above. As for how this is relevant to the post, I feel like Meta/Facebook has also jumped on the “free speech for me but not for thee” bandwagon.
I hate fuckerberg but there’s a possibility he’s playing 3d chess this time.
The amount of backlash and outrage that letting all the bullshit through because politicians are spewing it and being cheered might cause the politicians doing it to have to change. Generally no one wants the new policy.
They clamor for “free speech” but once they see how it devolves the public sentiment will say “OH GOD WE TAKE IT BACK”
That is an extremely remote, one might say infinitesimally small, possibility. Incredibly far more likely is that he’s plugged in politically and the ruling class wants to shift public debate even more fascist using automated control of public discourse.
It seems clear as day to me that all tech companies and leadership are kissing the ring right now to keep profits flowing and avoid being targeted or to collude with schemes to increase profits in the future, so like you’re saying that’s the most likely rationale. This could very easily be part of whatever scheme was negotiated verbally.
Religion is a mental illness.
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What a wild comparison. One is based off scientific facts and one is purely based on the supernatural. Literal opposites
Are you saying transactivism declares some people evil? How is that activism different from all other queer activism and does that also declare people evil? Is the belief in a soul part of any of that? Am I missing your point?
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That trans people exist, while god doesn’t.
Well you piqued my interest, where can i find these trans liturgy you speak of ? In a trans church? Or should i go to a woke cathedral? But seriously, what a pityfull comment you made. You could at least try to explain what you mean by false dichotomie before screaming about whatever strawman your comment is about. When did “trans activism” declared somebody irredeemably evil? (And did they deserved it?) And why are you talking about souls? Is this your way of understanding gender dysphoria?
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Jk rowling is really not a good example of “unfair” accusations she literally denied that trans people where targeted by nazi
I think JK Rowling is an example of a person who should’ve stayed the fuck out of Twitter. There might be some debate on what kind of a person she was before starting to engage people in Twitter, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that it made her worse in every possible way.
That she has been unable to let it go is the same kind of tragedy as when somebody succumbs to a narcotic and thus becomes a destructive asshole. Was the drug the reason for that individual to become an asshole or was he an asshole in soul and the drug just brought it to the surface?
Sure ? i dont see the link with what you were saying before…
People deem JK evil because she’s a generally terrible, hateful person. On the other hand, religion deems an entire group of people as evil regardless of what they’ve done in their life. A woman likes a woman? Straight to hell according to them. They could cure cancer and still straight to hell (which is where JK stands with trans people)
And don’t forget before gay marriage was legalized, they stated that anyone who married outside their race was going straight to hell.
The religious “right” makes up a new enemy every 30-40 years when the group they were targeting gets legally recognized civil rights.
Trans people will get full rights as well. It’s just gonna take a couple decades and us fighting like hell. JK rowling is on the wrong side of history and will be viewed as such in a few decades. Shame she wasted her legacy
Preach! But you know, not really.
They already did not enforce the rules related to that…
They don’t enforce rules at all
They enforce anti-bullying, and by that I mean calling bigots bigots is considered as bullying by Facebook.
Finally the oppression is over, finally. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
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