- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Meta announced a series of major updates to its content moderation policies today, including ending its fact-checking partnerships and “getting rid” of restrictions on speech about “topics like immigration, gender identity and gender” that the company describes as frequent subjects of political discourse and debate. “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms,” Meta’s newly appointed chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, wrote in a blog post outlining the changes.
In an accompanying video, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the company’s current rules in these areas as “just out of touch with mainstream discourse.”
In tandem with this announcement, the company made a number of updates across its Community Guidelines, an extensive set of rules that outline what kinds of content are prohibited on Meta’s platforms, including Instagram, Threads, and Facebook. Some of the most striking changes were made to Meta’s “Hateful Conduct” policy, which covers discussions on immigration and gender.
In a notable shift, the company now says it allows “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 other words, Meta now appears to permit users to accuse transgender or gay people of being mentally ill because of their gender expression and sexual orientation. The company did not respond to requests for clarification on the policy.
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So let’s talk about Peter Thiel, right?
It feels like the statements about the removal of fact-checking (which is all I heard about on the news) is misdirection, so the changes made deep in their policy documents get less attention than they deserve.
Reminder to get off Facebook and Instagram
This isn’t the first time they’ve pulled stuff like this nor will it be the last
Facebook has about 3 billion users across the globe. That’s just 500 million short of half the human population of the planet. At its height Twitter was around 360 million. And it’s user base has only shrunk by 30 million or so since the douche bag took it over.
Facebook, on the other hand, has dug its hooks into everyone’s personal lives to a point at which getting them to ditch Facebook would be like telling everyone to basically ditch their friends and family. No one is going to do that.
Twitter was an add-on. It was an extra. You could use it or not, nobody cared. It hadn’t built a large enough user base to be so integral to people’s social lives. TikTok, in about half the time twitter has existed, has basically eclipsed it in terms of monthly active users.
We have to accept this fact, Facebook has become an institution. And it should scare literally everyone that such a huge and powerful platform is owned by one single person with no real oversight whatsoever. That is why he was able to unilaterally decide to first censor Facebook at the beginning of the election and now uncensor it once an oligarch friendly president has been elected.
Everyone’s so focused on DElon Husk’s role in getting Trump elected, but all Zuckerberg needed to do was shut down the discourse on his platform so that the news couldn’t flow. And now he’s adopting the policies of Xwitter in an effort to win some favoritism from the incoming administration.
So, what is your solution, given the facts and the reality of the matter?
There is none currently. You’re free to continue to advocate dropping Meta products, but don’t hold your breath. Ideally we would have some kind of government intervention to break up the monopoly that is Meta or some form of regulation to reign in their behavior, but none of our politicians care to bother and unfortunately, with the party coming into power in our government, there’s little hope any kind of regulation on any monopolistic corporations. With our last election the American people have chosen to package themselves up and give themselves over to the corporate overlords.
So what you’re saying is, There Is No Alternative?
Meta went all in on the VR Metaverse to woo the next generation and just shot themselves in the foot.
VR Metaverse would have worked if they let people have legs.
Meta would not have liked WHY it would have worked, however…
Reminder to get off Facebook and Instagram
Most of us are already out or lurking because of family or some specific group they can’t do without.
The trick will be getting those people off the platform so we can cut all cords.
Excuses…
Yeah the answer is to delete your account and find alternative messengers for people you actually care about. Others that care will follow.
Businesses need to bring back email newsletters. And whatever celebrities or whatnot you care about need to too. The only reason I signed back up for either of those sites was to follow a local business for updates/sales/etc.
Let’s be honest, they already allow rampant, dangerous misinformation, bullying, and hate speech. They’re just being a little more honest about it, now.
The mask has slipped because they know they can get away with it.
After all,this isn’t anything forced on Meta, they are taking advantage of the incoming president being all for this and binning policies they clearly only follower reluctantly (and poorly).
I don’t think it’s a mask, I think they’re signaling and competing for favor. The timing is obvious.
Don’t forget that they will actively defend hate speech and overly police the opposite because their moderators aren’t moderated. They have literal priests dictating what is considered misoginy and homophobia ffs (True story).
I’m trans. I do have mental illness. It’s because society keeps sending me signals that I shouldn’t exist.
It’s the village, not the individuals. Our society is fucking sick. I’m straight, but it (the intolerance and violence towards people who are different) makes me sick.
This person gets it.
Thank you.
Is gender dysphoria not considered a health issue?? Legit asking. Like I thought the whole point of transitioning is that that is the treatment for it. That’s not a BAD thing, but it is A thing. Calling gay people mentally ill is obviously non sense. Calling ALL trans people mentally ill I don’t think is accurate… if they’ve actually transitioned lmao. Then they’re not sick anymore ?? Plz let me know if that take is incorrect. Feel like having pre-transition gender dysphoria compared to other mental illnesses like anxiety/depression/etc is a positive thing because it normalizes it to a degree.
Big difference between them being… there IS actually a cure to gender dysphoria compared to many other mental illnesses that can only be treated. Arguing with a right winger about this shit, he said he felt bad for trans people and that they were mentally ill. My response was “yeah no shit, you realize the way to reduce their risk of suicide is by letting them get the care they and their doctors deem necessary. It’s straight cruelty to acknowledge that it is something they need help with yet demonizing them for seeking help.”
Guess the people saying shit like the headline aren’t doing so with nuance in mind, and for them anyone trans at all = weird/mentally ill/sick.
The whole thing with trans health is that being trans is not considered a mental illness but gender dysphoria still has a diagnostic rubric and has health problems associated. So saying trans people who have transitioned aren’t sick anymore isn’t quite accurate because they were never considered sick in the first place. One of the ideas behind this way of thinking is a trans person’s issues aren’t caused because they are trans, it’s caused largely due to the lack of acceptance and support in the society around trans people. Framing transness as a mental illness also ignores the flipside of dysphoria - gender euphoria which is a very specific joy experienced by trans people expressing themselves healthily, it’s not simply from lessening pain around dysphoria, it’s basically something mostly unique to the trans experience that is overwhelmingly positive.
Also there’s not a one size fits all response to dysphoria. Some chose to physically transition and others choose to use other management techniques to help. There isn’t a “cure” to gender dysphoria. There are limits to what can be achieved through physical transition even if one goes all the way. One can have dysphoria around stuff like not having periods and child bearing capabilities even if they are fully transitioned or there are things that are irreversible if the transition happens too late. Being trans can be a kind of complicated state of being where one needs to learn and implement how best to be supported. Framing it not as an illness removes the stigma of looking at the experience entirely clinically as something to be solved. The fix isn’t to be “less trans” as it is when one approaches something as a disorder to be removed and minimized.
You pretty much have it right. Many-to-most trans people will suffer from or experience gender dysphoria to varying degrees, which is treated with hormone replacement therapy, transitioning, surgery, psychotherapy, etc… Once trans people are at a state where they feel comfortable with their bodies (or achieve a congruence between their inner and outer selves), then gender dysphoria is technically no longer present, but may return if the body or the mind changes and are no longer congruent.
Medically, this means that trans people can have an official diagnosis of gender dysphoria and get treatment for it. Gender dysphoria then goes away (hopefully) and preventative treatment like HRT continues.
Trans people can obviously also have mental disorders unrelated to being trans.
Edit: To clarify, neither being trans nor experiencing gender dysphoria are mental disorders. Gender dysphoria is listed in the DSM-5 in order for proper treatment by health professionals and for insurance coverage.
What trump wants to do to trans people is the equivalent of lobotomizing everyone with bipolar disorder because you don’t believe the accepted treatments work.
Gender dyspohoria is a mental health condition the same way ADHD is. Do you run around calling people with ADHD mentally ill? No. And, gender dysphoria is one of the easiest neurodivergent conditions to treat. You let the person be the gender they already know they are. Doing anything else may as well be lobotomizing them. It’s unacceptable and creates more problems. Plus it’s fucking cruel.
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Gotta have an out group for the in group to vilify and all that :| I do get your point about calling someone with any kind of mental illness “mentally ill”. That does feel rude. It’s “technically correct*” but that doesn’t make it less rude.
From googling 23% of US adults (assumed because current empire. Even being a US citizen, having some knowledge of history I can’t blame people in other countries hoping/plotting to knock Hamburgerland down a few pegs because that’s what happens, and we are absolutely past the zenith of American dominance) have a diagnosed mental illness. Lotta folks probably are undiagnosed. As is consistent with history, even in this golden era of mental health awareness, trans people are being othered. I would be curious to see some graphs of trans folk being mentioned in newspapers/magazines since the 1920s as a ratio of printed pieces.
The whole thing with trans health is that being trans is not considered a mental illness but gender dysphoria still has a diagnostic rubric and has health problems associated. So saying trans people who have transitioned aren’t sick anymore isn’t quite accurate because they were never considered sick in the first place. One of the ideas behind this way of thinking is a trans person’s issues aren’t caused because they are trans, it’s caused largely due to the lack of acceptance and support in the society around trans people. Framing transness as a mental illness also ignores the flipside of dysphoria - gender euphoria which is a very specific joy experienced by trans people expressing themselves healthily, it’s not simply from lessening pain around dysphoria, it’s basically something mostly unique to the trans experience that is overwhelmingly positive.
Also there’s not a one size fits all response to dysphoria. Some chose to physically transition and others choose to use other management techniques to help. There isn’t a “cure” to gender dysphoria. There are limits to what can be achieved through physical transition even if one goes all the way. One can have dysphoria around stuff like not having periods and child bearing capabilities even if they are fully transitioned or there are things that are irreversible if the transition happens too late. Being trans can be a kind of complicated state of being where one needs to learn and implement how best to be supported. Framing it not as an illness removes the stigma of looking at the experience entirely clinically as something to be solved. The fix isn’t to be “less trans” as it is when one approaches something as a disorder to be removed and minimized.
My thoughts exactly. As an outsider looking in, how would you classify gender dysphoria other than an illness?
It’s treatable, just not the way religious fanatics want to.
Lmaooooo exactly how that convo went with that guy. “Yes theyre sick but think about all the people who transitioned before they were adults who regret it… I am going to focus on those people and ignore how 95% of cases the person doesn’t regret it.”
98% don’t regret it and those who do overwhemingly onlu regret it because of how society treats them.
I didn’t know that “how society treats them” with the regret part o.o can you source on that for future reference
I would classify it as a neurodivergent condition.
Do you call people with ADHD mentally ill?
So what is a condition if not an illness? Can you have a beneficial medical condition? Maybe it’s because English is my second language, but this is part of the confusion.
Well, technically they are. It’s a detrimental neurological condition. It doesn’t to my knowledge benefit a person to have untreated ADHD. Or as they say, a untreated mental illnessl. I don’t much care for the padding of language, rather I would remove the stigma by using the term without judgement.
I think i’m seeing it as a classification tree, i could see Illness branching off to mental illness and then there would be an immense amount of mental illnesses. Somewhere there neuro divergence would be and perhaps ADHD under there.
Calling anyone with a mental health disorder these days is considered extremely rude to begin with. Also, at least in America, people with a condition like ADHD or Autism aren’t considered mentally ill, they’re considered neurodivergent. Which is a term with a much nicer connontation than would be used for someone with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Yes, it’s all semantics, but if you’re going to be talking to people with these conditions, the semantics matter. Don’t call trans people mentally ill. Hell don’t call anyone mentally ill. It’s like calling someone with downs syndrome the r-slur.
Is gender dysphoria not considered a health issue […] Feel like having pre-transition gender dysphoria compared to other mental illnesses like anxiety/depression/etc is a positive thing because it normalizes it to a degree.
There’s an inherent problem of definitions here:
Consider: does the DSM classify transgender as a mental disorder? Hard to say. It includes 302.85: Gender Dysphoria, defined as “a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender”. It also includes approximately one million caveats saying that transgender definitely isn’t a mental disorder. Why the contradiction? Because regardless of the philosophical definition of mental disorder, the practical definition is:
- If you call something a mental disorder, insurance has to cover treatment for it, which is good.
- But if you call something a mental disorder, people will accuse you of trying to stigmatize them, which is bad.
The DSM writers are trans-friendly and want to make sure trans people can get the care they need (for example, in most states, people need a psych evaluation before they can get gender affirmation surgery), so they want to force insurance companies to cover transgender, so they have to include it. But they also don’t want to stigmatize trans people, so they also include a lot of paragraphs about how even though they just listed it as a mental disorder, it definitely isn’t a mental disorder.
You listen to society? They’re the ones that invented gender characteristics and stereotypes. If you listen to them there’s a chance you’ll get caught up in their bullshit instead of just being what you’d be if there was no other human on earth.
Kind of hard not to listen to society when you’re a part of it. It’s like saying to try to not listen to the music while you’re at a nightclub.
I’d like out of this nightclub. Maybe move to a different, more pleasant nightclub.
I understand that are trying to be nice, but it’s kinda rude tbh. Because you are making it seem like the problems they have aren’t actually real. They might not have an alternative nightclub to go to because all of them are shit, or they can’t go to another nightclub.
Oh, my apologies. That wasn’t my intention at all.
I fully sympathise with not feeling like you belong in this society, I feel that way too. I’ve always felt that way. Sadly, I think precious few people are able to actually function and live separate from society, it requires a lot of means (money, mostly) that most people simply don’t have. We can’t choose to walk away from society, and so we’re forced to live and operate inside of it.
The problems are very much real, and to me it feels like the best solution would be a new society rather than conforming to the BS we have to be in. That’s just a pipe dream, though.
You’re good, IMO, it’s clear you didn’t imply that they can just “move to another nightclub” and that not being able to is what you actually implied. Seen that exact comparison before with life being a loud nightclub and there are no others to go to.
It’s our current iteration of society that shouldn’t exist.
For what it’s worth, I am hereby sending you the official signal that you should absolutely exist, that you have every right to be yourself, and that your continued existence is important and meaningful for yourself and others in similar situations especially. I hope you will forever be gifted with the courage to be yourself, even when the world is challenging you on it.
So will the EU call him up to explain or do nothing?
Dude does realise he operates outside of the US theatre as well, yeah? And his shitty site was already drawing heat from many governments.
These changes are only happening in the US. They wouldn’t be allowed to do this in the EU anyway, not without being sued loads.
His website and the posts in question are accessible from the EU though.
That’s where things get even more worrying.
As it stands, he still has to abide by EU and British laws but then there’s this:
That suggests that social media laws could be part of the negotiation with other countries who don’t want to get wrecked by tariffs.
As weakening those laws will lead to an increase in unchallenged far right posts, they could have knock on effects in elections. Trump will have seen how effective the changes at Xitter were for him, so spreading that to other social media platforms is already a win for him but being able to impact the political landscape elsewhere would be a bonus - France and German are having problems fending off the far right and if they gained control they’d be a lot more compliant to his demands which has knock-on effects for the EU and NATO.
The far right hates america more than you can imagine. They would be more likely to leave NATO than talking to the USA
Some of them do have mental illness, just like some straight people have mental illness
Like fuckerburg
I also love how someone actually got offended and downvoted you for saying literal fact that a human, can have mental illness.
Everything gets downvoted on lemmy, that’s why I turned off downvoting in preferences and it’s a way better experience.
Ohh you can do that? I should check if jebroa has it too, not like downvotes usually bother me.
It obviously does hurt your feelings if you are actively seeking ways to block seeing downvotes lmao.
I don’t think it’s weird to want to avoid needless negativity.
“Actively seeking ways” lol it’s 2 clicks to accomplish permanently
The issue is, people want to argue LGBTQ+ people are like that due to mental illness, and thus either need to be corrected through torture usually disguised as treatment, or must be removed from society and/or the genepool.
the company now says it allows “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation”
“trans people disproportionately face mental health concerns including depression and anxiety” ✅ OK in my book
“you are trans, so you are mentally ill” ❌ reductive, hateful, and a flat out lie, but approved by Meta now apparently
Isn’t that the same thing just said nicely vs not nicely
It is only the same thing if you are under the mistaken belief that all trans people are mentally ill. Is that what you believe?
No but I believe a higher percentage of trans people are mentally ill than non trans people.
Why do you believe it? Did Jesus tell you?
Because there has been clear and consistent data on this
Feel free to present this clear and consistent data along with the methodology.
Something tells me that Facebook does not feel the same if you say that about Republicans.
If they abandon the capacity to moderate, they won’t be able to check that either, unless there’s some AI model that can detect leftists easily. A McCarthyismAI.
Let me just say it wouldn’t shock me if there is.
The timing of this right before the incoming us admin is not a coincidence.
It should be no surprise. Zuckerberg and Sandberg met primarily with conservatives for years because they wouldn’t stop complaining about how unfair the internet is with all this censorship on the platform. Waah.
Zucc was spotted arriving at Mar-A-Lardo with knee pads
Just the latest salvo in the proxy class war.
The bigoted, hateful hard right-wingers have been and are being very deliberately and methodically indoctrinated into serving as the footsoldiers in the privileged parasite class’s proxy war against the left.
And Meta is ready to play its part.
It’s not like they would stop believing those things if Facebook didn’t let them express it. At least now we can argue with them in the open.
You think you won’t be banned by selective application of the rules for arguing back? I mean, best of luck to you, but this isn’t a scalable solution to the problem.
Id bet Mark Zuckerberg has mental illness. Having the level of wealth that he has makes connecting with common people nigh impossible and leaves his pool of potential friends limited a handful of people who themselves focus on hoarding wealth that they don’t even have any real use for.
Getting used to the power and comfort his billions give him means he has to worry about one day losing what he has attained, and forces him to justify to himself the possession of so much wealth while others starve.
I see no way someone can exist in that space for years on end without it warping their sanity into an uncaring money hoarder obsessed with making his numbers higher.
Id bet Mark Zuckerberg has mental illness. Having the level of wealth that he has makes connecting with common people nigh impossible and leaves his pool of potential friends limited a handful of people who themselves focus on hoarding wealth that they don’t even have any real use for.
I don’t think you can truly become a billionaire without having some sort of problems. That amount of money is so unfathomably large you can’t achieve it without exploitation on some level or another. Obviously people might use and abuse one another unintentionally, but when you’ve done so economically to the degree of earning billions?
I would agree:
These are some common signs of ASPD:
Lack of empathy for others Impulsive behavior Attempting to control others with threats or aggression Using intelligence, charm, or charisma to manipulate others Not learning from mistakes or punishment Lying for personal gain Showing a tendency toward physical violence and fights Generally superficial relationships Sometimes, stealing or committing other crimes…
Seems like Meta has a collective mental illness
I wonder what broad over generalizations I can get away with about conservatives and liberals that may potentially harm them?
You could try by suggesting that religious people are.delusional and see how it goes.
I’ve have been doing that for 20+ years and have been getting somewhere 🤔
You get shadowbanned, I tried.
The whole of American society is slowly shifting towards widespread acceptance of violence against queer people. Any notion that our society or culture has progressed in any way is fake. It’s empty. The post Stonewall era of perceived progress is over. For many queer people, the approach of January 20th is a shadow encroaching on the light of lives we hoped to live. Fear is becoming very commonplace in our communities. There’s no mistaking what the people in power plan to do to us. And every day, widespread society shows more and more that that’s fine. Any debate that we deserve rights is over. We are a problem for those in power to choose how to get rid of. Our lives are completely at the whims of the state, a state now being handed over to a group of people who delight in our suffering. Who delight in the suffering of children.
I fully expect states like Florida to criminalize being queer as soon as Trump takes office. They will start to raid night clubs and arrest trans people under crossdressing laws and gay people under sodomy laws. Just like they did in the 60s. We will be forced into hiding. We will grow up never understanding who we are or that its okay for people like us to exist. A whole generation of queer children will die because of laws like this. Nothing has changed.
Shoot 'em. The cops, I mean.
I wish, oh how I wish I could say you were lying or fear mongering.
The Democrats claiming they lost because they were “Too woke” and “Transpepole are to blame!11” despite the exit polls not supporting the reality of that idea was just manufacturing consent.
I honestly think conservatives want it to be legal for them to hunt and kill queer people in the streets.
