Meta platforms will allow users to accuse LGBTQ+ people of being mentally ill because they are gay or transgender, after their moderation policies, which prohibited insulting someone's intellect or mental illness were adjusted,  according to reports in US media on Tuesday.“We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird,’” the revised company guidelines read.The new guidelines around hate speech are part of Meta’s broader major changes regarding how it moderates online speech on its platforms, according to reports.Other changes to the policies reportedly include new hate speech guidelines, including removing rules that forbid insults about a person’s appearance based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, and serious disease.Meta also reportedly scrapped policies that prohibited expressions of hate against a person or a group on the basis of their protected class and that banned users from referring to transgender or nonbinary people as “it.”LGBTQ flag (credit: Wikimedia Commons)Policy chief statementMeta's global policy chief, Joel Kaplan, was quoted by the New York Times as saying that Meta's content moderation efforts will refocus on “illegal and high-severity violations," adding that "It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms."The company previously sparked controversy when Meta’s Oversight Board allowed the controversial phrase “from the river to the sea” on its platform, claiming it didn't violate Meta’s rules on hate speech, violence, incitement, or dangerous organizations and individuals."

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, dropped some LGBTQ protections from its hate speech rules Tuesday amid a wider overhaul of the social media giant’s content moderation

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, has revised its hate speech guidelines to allow users to describe LGBTQ people as mentally ill. The change was announced in new guidelines released Tuesday by the media outfit.