According to the Human Rights Campaign, Meta accepted over $4 million for ads that violates its own “Community Standards”. Specifically ads for Matt Walsh’s anti-transgender propaganda film “What Makes a Woman?” violates Facebook’s community guidelines. Laurel Powell, HRC Deputy Director of Communications stated, “Like many other marginalized groups, social media platforms like Facebook & Twitter are vital outlets for the LGBTQ2S+ community. As publicly traded corporations, it’s good business for these companies to ensure the people on their platforms don’t face threats, harassment or stigma paid for by extremists. HRC is concerned the ads will lead to real-world threats & violence against trans people, also a direct violation of the platform’s safety policy. In Walsh’s case, this is not without precedent: earlier this year, he helped spearhead harassment campaigns against hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to trans youth, which led to multiple instances of bomb threats and death threats. As a whole, social media companies lack real mechanisms for accountability, leading to a lack of trust on the part of marginalized groups. No system is perfect & that’s certainly true for social media companies but when we’re talking about millions upon millions of dollars being spent & who knows where that money comes from to promote a propaganda film filled with outright lies & mistruths about transgender people, which seems to have no goal but to further stigmatize transgender people, there must be some mechanism by which Meta & the Facebook platform won’t let themselves be used to cause harm.”
No comments:
Post a Comment