The Meta group, which includes Facebook and Instagram, continues to circulate anti-LGBTQ+ ads despite its anti-hate speech policy and rakes in a few hundred dollars in the process, a media watchdog has said.
Media Matters indicates that since September it has identified more than a hundred advertisements circulating on Meta’s social networks referring to the term grooming. This theory, put forward by the American conservative right, insinuates that people from the LGBTQ + community pose a threat to minors and seek to indoctrinate them.
“This rhetoric coincided with a conservative push to create legislation that suppresses the rights of LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender people,” recalls Media Matters.
According to the American organization, between September 6 and October 12, Meta would have removed 40 of these contents, but 19 others would have been added at the same time.
Based on data from Dewey Square Adwatch, Media Matters estimates that these ads would have generated at least $13,600 and more than 1 million impressions (number of times one of these content appears on the screen of an Internet user).
Moderation
Among the ads collected by Media Matters, two were run by Republican Illinois Senate candidate Philip Nagel, between October 4 and October 13. He affirms, on video, that he is “fed up with the sickly perversion which is imposed on our children” by “a political class full of pedophiles and groom “.
In another ad that ran on Instagram and Facebook in mid-September, a conservative student group, Turning Point USA, relayed a tweet from conservative activist Candace Owens that read: “I have no patience for this movement grooming of children”. In a comment accompanying the post, the conservative group asks internet users to “protect [leurs] children “.
On its advertising creation platform, Meta specifies that “ads must not discriminate or encourage discrimination on the basis of personal characteristics such as […] sexual orientation”.
This rule is the same for non-paying publications on its networks. However, several hateful comments targeting the LGBTQ + community in large numbers slip through the cracks of moderation, despite reports, revealed The Canadian Press last February.
Philip Nagel’s video, which this time is not part of advertising content, has also continued to circulate on Facebook since June 7.