LGBTQ organizations have been leaving X — aka Twitter — in droves, and the latest to exit the social media platform are GLSEN and Lambda Legal.
GLSEN announced that it would be leaving due to “increased cyberbullying and harassment against transgender and LGBTQ+ youth.”
“In a year of record-breaking anti-LGBTQ+ bills and rising hate across the U.S, the unchecked vitriol and disinformation on this platform has rapidly decimated a vital resource for our communities to safely connect and get news,” Lambda Legal posted.
GLSEN shared data from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which reported 300 hateful posts and found that a week later, 86% of them were still online. This included anti-Semitic, anti-Black, neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and other racist posts.
The increase in hate speech comes after eccentric billionaire Elon Musk purchased the platform in October 2022. In April, X edited its hateful conduct policy to remove “This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals,” as well as removing a line about people who experience disproportionate levels of hate speech, “women, people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual individuals, and marginalized and historically underrepresented communities.”
Recently, Musk attacked diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as “propaganda words for racism, sexism, and other -isms.”
The largest exit was in April, when hundreds of Pride centers across the country said goodbye — including LGBT Life Center in Virginia, The Center on Colfax in Colorado, San Francisco LGBT Center, The LOFT in New York, The Center in Orlando, and CenterLink, which represents more than 300 Pride centers. In South Florida, The Pride Center at Equality Park and Compass bid adieu. While some groups have kept their accounts to refer people to their other social media networks, some like Compass have outright deleted their accounts.
In November, youth suicide prevention organization The Trevor Project left X “given the increasing hate and vitriol on the platform targeting the LGBTQ community — the group we exist to serve.”
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