On January 7, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an overhaul to long-standing Meta policies surrounding content moderation and political discourse across the platform, including Facebook and Instagram. In the following days, subsequent updates signal that Meta is wholly abandoning its commitment to inclusion.
Lambda Legal CEO, Kevin Jennings, issued the following statement:
“If Mark Zuckerberg actually wants to foster free speech and political discourse on Meta, his company must not tacitly license the rampant defamation, disinformation, and abuse of vulnerable populations that shuts down rather than fostering the free exchange of ideas.
Instead, Meta has systematically been dismantling its infrastructure, including:
- Updating Meta’s “Hateful Conduct” policy to protect speech that targets LGBTQ+ people with slurs, misinformation and “allegations of mental illness or abnormality.”
- Hiding posts with LGBTQ+ related hashtags on Instagram from search under its “sensitive content” filter – which is automatically engaged for LGBTQ+ youth.
- Deleting longstanding transgender and nonbinary Messenger themes.
- Eliminating its third-party fact-checkers, instead replacing it with the establishment of a “community notes” system in which users can add their own context to posts.
- Ending penalties that de-rank posts containing misinformation.
- Dismantling the company’s major diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Zuckerberg claims to value free expression, but these changes signal to our communities that we aren’t welcome or safe here. We know too well that unchecked misinformation disproportionately targets LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, people with disabilities, people of color and everyone living with HIV.
Amid the attacks in 2025 in state legislatures across the country and an anti-LGBTQ+ majority in Congress and the White House, it is vital for us to have quick access to the news, connect with each other, and participate in democratic discourse in real time. Instead, with its focus solely on content that violates legal standards, Meta has given a free pass for users to spread disinformation, harassment and hate speech that compromises the safety of our communities and our democracy.”