Meta’s Chief Marketing Officer Alex Schultz has voiced concerns that excessive censorship could harm the LGBTQ+ community and stifle important conversations. Schultz shared his views following Meta’s recent policy update that changed what users can say about LGBTQ+ issues on its platforms. In an internal forum post, Schultz warned that more censorship might “harm speech” from the LGBTQ+ community trying to fight hate.
He said, “My perspective is we’ve done well as a community when the debate has happened, and I was shocked with how far we’ve gone with censorship of the debate.”
Schultz pointed out that experiencing and seeing abuse has previously raised awareness of issues within the community. He emphasized that progress on rights often happened in less restrictive environments. Schultz noted, “Obviously, I don’t like people saying things that I consider awful, but I worry that the solution of censoring that doesn’t work as well as you might hope.
So I don’t know the answer, this stuff is really complicated, but I am worried that too much censorship is actually harmful, and that’s may have been where we ended up.”
Recently, the company changed its moderation rules to allow statements on its platforms saying that LGBTQ+ people are “mentally ill.” It also removed trans and nonbinary-themed chat options from its Messenger app. These features were previously highlighted as part of Meta’s support for Pride Month. Talking about content moderation, Schultz mentioned, “We don’t enforce these things perfectly.” He referred to the accidental removal of harmless content and stressed the challenges in moderation.
Censorship concerns harm inclusive conversations
“The more rules we have, the more mistakes we make… Moderation is hard, and we’ll always get it wrong somewhat. The more rules, the more censorship, the more we’ll harm speech from our own community pushing back on hatred.”
The changes led to intense internal debate and public criticism.
The decision also included breaking up Meta’s dedicated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) team, as announced by VP of HR Janelle Gale. Meta is replacing this with a community notes system, similar to the approach used on Elon Musk’s platform, X. In a recent interview, Schultz admitted that both internal and external pressures had pushed Meta to adopt stricter policies in recent years.
However, the company is now trying to regain control over its content moderation strategies. While some employees saw the rollback as “another step backward” for Meta, others raised concerns about the message it sends to marginalized communities that rely on Meta’s platforms. These concerns were further heightened after instructions to remove tampons from men’s bathrooms, a move impacting nonbinary and transgender employees.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
