Advocacy group GLAAD released its annual Social Media Safety index, in which it criticized all social media platforms for not keeping users safe but targeted Twitter as worst of all.
GLAAD, founded as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is now one of the leading advocacy groups for LGBT issues in the country.
In its annual report, the organization said all social media platforms do poorly protecting LGBT users from hate speech and harassment, but it singled out Elon Musk’s Twitter as the worst.
It ranks platforms on 12 LGBT-specific indicators, such as offering gender pronoun options on profiles and prohibiting advertising that could be harmful to LGBT people.
GLAAD’s scorecard deemed Twitter the only one which saw its rank decrease from last year. It sank over ten percentage points to 33% from 45% a year ago.
“Twitter is is largely a cesspool now. You can’t post without getting attacked. There’s no room for conversation. It is just about hand-to-hand combat,” said GLAAD CEO and President Sarah Kate Ellis. “And that’s what it is. It’s like backyard dogfights.”
Musk has described himself as a “free-speech absolutist” and relaxed Twitter’s moderation policies when he took over the site.
For example, in April, he axed a policy against the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals”.
He also changed how the platform handles tweets that violate its rules, preferring to restrict them rather than remove them altogether.
Other Sites See Small Increase
Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram, saw the largest increase in its score, making them the “safest” social media site for LGBT users. But both sites were criticized for not enforcing their policies consistently.
The controversial but popular Chinese-owned TikTok ironically saw its score increase almost as much, gaining 14 percentage points from 2022.
Google’s YouTube rose nine points after a flurry of changes to its moderation and content policies.
Glad IM NOT on Twitter