Meta: Keep misogynists off Threads
The petition to Meta reads:
Threads is shaping up to be the new playground for white nationalists and men's rights extremists keen on spreading misogyny, racism, and disinformation. To make Threads the safe space Meta claims it will be, we demand the company:
- Stop allowing misogynists, white supremacists, and other hateful fringe figures from being allowed access to Threads.
- Update necessary Meta user policies and create clear and specific policies for Threads that ban disinformation, particularly election-related, climate, and medical disinformation, hate, and harassment.
- Create a unique Trust and Safety team and Elections team for Threads whose sole focus is monitoring and ensuring platform integrity.
Why is this important?
Meta, the social media giant that owns Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger, just launched a new platform last week called Threads.
Within hours of launching, Threads was bombarded with misogynists, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and anti-LGBTQ+ extremists--many of whom were already banned from other Meta platforms. Notable blocked bigots who are now on Threads include white nationalists Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer. This is unacceptable.
Threads is meant to be a response by Meta to Twitter's failure as a platform since the recent takeover by Elon Musk. According to Meta's chief operating officer, Chris Cox, Threads will be a "platform that is sanely run," and the goal of the new platform is "safety, ease of use, reliability."
But Threads is far from this.
The platform is shaping up to be the new playground for right-wing and fringe figures keen on spreading misogyny, racism, and disinformation. What's worse, much of Meta's Trust and Safety team and Elections team--the folks who are supposed to prevent hate and monitor disinformation--were laid off earlier this year. Meta needs to stop marketing and promoting Threads as a safer new social media alternative if it doesn't have the capacity to monitor hate and disinformation or prevent previously blocked bigots from joining.
One step Meta must take to make sure Threads lives up to the hype of being a safer space is to immediately block user accounts of known misogynists and white supremacists. Failing to do so would give these extremists a dangerous new platform to spread racist, sexist, and election disinformation and potentially incite violence ahead of a critical election year. We can't sit by and let that happen.
Sign the petition demanding Meta stop allowing disinformation, misogyny, and hate to thrive on Threads!