Facebook And Instagram To Ban The Promotion Of “Conversion Therapies”

Facebook will take action to ban the promotion of “conversion therapies” on its social media platform and Instagram.

This move is possible because a group of users in the United Kingdom filed a complaint against Core Issues Trust, a British Christian organization that advertised “conversion therapies” on Instagram.

“We don’t allow attacks against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity and are updating our policies to ban the promotion of conversion therapy services,” Tara Hopkins, Instagram’s public policy director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, said in a statement.

“We have removed violating content from @coreissuestrusttv,” she added. “We are always reviewing our policies and will continue to consult with experts and people with personal experiences to inform our approach."

So the fight against LGBTQ hate is intensifying online. Sure, not everyone will like it, but it’s more than necessary.

Since the beginning of the year, the existing hate speech policies of Facebook and Instagram have been expanded to include messages promoting “conversion therapy”.

From now on, no content promoting these “therapies”, whether testimonials or any kind of content promoting the practice, can be recommended to users unless it is part of a legislative context.

Therefore, “conversion therapy” ads have no place on Facebook and Instagram anymore.

As for Twitter, their wishes of harm rule already prohibits the promotion of “conversion therapies”.

A Twitter spokesperson also indicated that their company is “working to make the training decks more clear so that team members have a wide variety of examples to refer to and our enforcement of this is consistent and scalable globally.”

It’s a straw in the ocean of hatred, but it’s a first step in the right direction.