Campaigners fear spike in hate speech as Meta lifts restrictions on gender, sexual identity [Video]

WASHINGTON – Tech giant Meta has rolled back restrictions around topics such as gender and sexual identity, a sweeping move advocacy groups fear will fuel hate speech.

The change coincides with the company’s shock announcement on Jan 7 that it was ending its third-party fact-checking programme in the United States and adopting a crowd-sourced model to police misinformation similar to the Elon Musk-owned X.

The latest version of Meta’s community guidelines said its platforms – which include Facebook and Instagram – would now permit users to accuse people of “mental illness or abnormality” based on their gender or sexual orientation.

The updated version also struck out previous restrictions on referring to women as “household objects or property”, black people as “farm equipment” and transgender or non-binary people as “it”.

“We’re getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and …