Twitter gets the lowest score on GLAAD’s evaluation of social media’s safety for LGBTQ people

GLAAD, a nonprofit that advocates for queer communities, released its annual Social Media Safety Index, finding that five major platforms fail to mitigate hate and disinformation surrounding LGBTQ communities. The platforms also disproportionately suppress LGBTQ content through removal, demonetization, and forms of shadowbanning, which is when platforms hide or restrict a user’s content without informing them.

GLAAD measured things like protections for LGBTQ users from harassment and prohibiting advertising that could be harmful or discriminatory to LGBTQ people, and gave each platform a score based on how well it adhered to the criteria. No platform scored 100%, but some did significantly better than others:

Instagram: 63%

Facebook: 61%

TikTok: 57%

YouTube: 54%

Twitter: 33%

All of the platforms made improvements from the year before, except for one. 

Twitter has been barreling toward this rating for a while. In April, the company’s hateful conduct policy had a line removed that prevented “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.” And as my colleague Stephen Pastis reported, flagged posts containing racist, homophobic, and other abusive content weren’t taken down by Twitter for several days after being flagged as offensive. The posts were shared by Twitter users with a blue check mark, which comes with the perk of prioritized ranking in conversations and search. 

GLAAD also called out Elon Musk’s own posts on the platform. Most recently, he faced backlash for a tweet on the first day of Pride Month, saying he personally uses the pronouns that people prefer, but that the policy wouldn’t be enforced on Twitter.

But it’s not just Twitter that faced scrutiny under the report.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, was lauded for its strong policies but found to not enforce them consistently. 

For example, GLAAD noted that in April 2023, the organization informed Meta of anti-trans hate posted by Instagram accounts, but received an explanation through an automated in-app reporting system that “because of the high volume of reports we receive, our team hasn’t been able to review this post.” 

GLAAD called the instance “gravely concerning.” Meta said in a prepared statement that it works with “civil society organizations around the world in our work to design policies and create tools that foster a safe online environment.”

This all comes as Meta prepares to launch a Twitter competitor. And, as GLAAD notes, during a year that has seen “an unprecedented surge of hateful, violent, and false rhetoric hurled at LGBTQ people both on and offline.” 

While it’s unclear when Meta’s Twitter challenger will arrive, it will face a tough challenge of improving its content moderation strategy not just on Facebook and Instagram, but also on the coming “Threads” app.

More news below.

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Andrea Guzman

NEWSWORTHY

YouTube follows Reddit in API crackdowns. An open-source “alternative front-end” to YouTube known as Invidious received a cease-and-desist letter for allowing users to watch videos without having their data tracked. YouTube says this violates its API policy and demanded a shutdown of the service within a week. Invidious also helps users watch videos without ads, which brings in revenue that the video sharing company has been trying to boost. Vice’s Motherboard reports that the letter was sent on June 8, and Invidious doesn’t plan to back down and thinks of its service more as a web browser. “It doesn't use the ‘YouTube Data API,’ in the same way a human watching a video on YouTube doesn't use the ‘YouTube Data API,’” Invidious told the publication.

Layoffs at Binance U.S. subsidiary. About 50 people were laid off at Binance’s U.S. affiliate, citing the need to reduce its burn rate after the Securities and Exchange Commission sued the exchange and its founder, Changpeng Zhao. This round of layoffs follows one in May, where Binance said it was evaluating whether it has “the right talent.” In documents reviewed by CoinDesk, Binance said it was a hard decision. “Unlike every other U.S. crypto company, we have been working to avoid this scenario, but circumstances have now shifted,” the documents read.

The jobs facing augmentation or elimination by A.I. A new report by software company ServiceNow and research partner Pearson looks at how ChatGPT and other A.I. tools could shape the workplace in the coming years, and it estimates that A.I. will “augment” millions of jobs but require an even greater number of people to be retrained as A.I. eliminates their jobs. A.I.’s spread through the workplace may drive demand for employees like “flow automation engineers,” “platform owners,” “help desk support agents,” and “data analysts.” This comes as businesses grapple with how much to embrace A.I. use in the workplace with those like Samsung banning programs like ChatGPT since it can present security risks as others like IBM view it as a way to cut costs.

SIGNIFICANT FIGURES

92%

—The rate of U.S.-based developers who said they now use A.I. coding tools at work and for outside projects in a recent survey by GitHub. In its results, the Microsoft-owned company recommended that companies establish standards for using A.I. tools so that they’re used ethically and effectively.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Google is warning its staff to beware of the risks posed by A.I.—including its own, by Christiaan Hetzner

Sony, Universal, and 15 other music publishers are suing Twitter for stealing their content, and using Elon Musk’s own words against him. He’s called copyright a ‘plague on humanity’, by Rachel Shin

Google takes millions from pro-life groups masquerading as abortion clinics in deceptive ads, study finds, by Prarthana Prakash

Elon Musk blasts ESG as ‘the devil’ after tobacco stocks beat Tesla in sustainability indexes, by Christiaan Hetzner

Doctors are using ChatGPT to improve their awkward bedside manner and sound more human to their patients, by Prarthana Prakash

BEFORE YOU GO

ChatGPT is behind the wheel with you. Mercedes owners in the U.S. with models that use MBUX can opt into a beta program today that activates ChatGPT functionality. To join, drivers can address their car with “Hey Mercedes, I want to join the beta program.”

Mercedes says this enhances its existing voice assistant with the more natural dialogue of ChatGPT. Users can ask it for details about where they’re headed, have it suggest a new dinner recipe while driving home, or have it answer complex questions. In a release, the company’s chief technology officer of development and procurement, Markus Schäfer, said “the integration of ChatGPT with Microsoft in our controlled cloud environment is a milestone on our way to making our cars the centre of our customers’ digital lives.”