Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is revamping the rules his company had established to ensure a safe environment on Facebook and Instagram. One of these rules prohibited discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community, including referring to them as "mentally ill." However, Zuckerberg has now reversed this policy, citing the need to "promote public debate."

"We need to return to the fundamentals of our company," said the head of the world's largest social media platforms. Those fundamentals, it seems, involve as few rules and fact-checks as possible. Protections against hate speech have been shredded under this new approach. The updated policy states: "We do allow 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 its publication announcing the changes, Meta refers to trans individuals with the dubious term "transgenderism," a word predominantly used by anti-trans extremists. This term is commonly employed to portray trans people as representing an "ideology" or political movement, rather than as a marginalised group in the context of civil rights.

Kate Ellis, president of the American LGBTQ+ organisation GLAAD, expressed outrage at the policy change: "Without these necessary hate speech and other policies, Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalised groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanising narratives. With these changes, Meta is continuing to normalise anti-LGBTQ hatred for profit — at the expense of its users and true freedom of expression. Fact-checking and hate speech policies protect free speech."

The policy change appears to coincide with an effort by Zuckerberg to curry favour with the incoming President of the United States, Donald Trump. Zuckerberg was recently spotted dining at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida. Other influential CEOs, such as Apple’s Tim Cook and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, have also been attempting to ingratiate themselves with Trump.

This week, Instagram faced backlash for blocking LGBTQ+-related posts aimed at teenagers. The platform subsequently reversed the ban.