The hate speech landscape on Facebook is worse than you thought. Here’s why

In April, Charlie Kirk and his conservative youth organization Turning Point spent about $5,000—chump change for their $80 million operation—on a familiar product for them: another round of Facebook ads. The four ads used the Kirk formula for going viral, outrage politics, this time attacking LGBTQ people and their allies as “groomers,” the term for child predators who try to manipulate victims to gain their trust in order to sexually abuse them. One ad shows Kirk arguing transgender people have “deep-seated mental problems to begin with” that make them easy prey for “a groomer.” Another argues Disney’s last three animated films included subtle attempts to groom kids (Lightyear featured smooching lesbians, Strange World had a gay teen, Elemental starred Pixar’s first nonbinary character), and that ulterior motive is why they tanked at the box office—“Hold this L groomers,” reads the ad’s text. Like other content found posted by Kirk and Turning Point’s accounts, these ads appear to use “groomer” in a manner that violates Meta’s Community Standards and its Advertising Standards. Both sets of standards ban generalizing people groups as criminals, calling them sexual predators, and targeting them with slurs. For users still wondering whether that ban includes saying that LGBTQ people are “groomers,” Meta set the record straight in 2022 by confirming to the Daily Dot that “baselessly calling LGBTQ people or the community ‘groomers’ or accusing them of ‘grooming’” does indeed qualify as hate speech. And according to data that LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD shared with Fast Company, Kirk and Turning Point seem personally acquainted with that ban: In the past year, at least two posts published by Kirk’s Facebook page have been removed—one that wrote “Groomer endgame” above a video of a school teacher acknowledging their gender was hard for students to guess, and another that reacted to a kids’ Pride summer camp with “Groomer alert!” Yet the Turning Point crew’s latest “groomer” ads stayed active even after GLAAD flagged them as hate speech. They generated at least 1.2 million impressions—the equivalent of reaching San Francisco’s and Miami’s entire populations. How did two known provocateurs succeed in running a paid version of content that recycled attacks Meta appears to have removed as hate speech just months earlier? Meta declined to offer Fast Company a detailed explanation on the record. In a written statement, it noted, “Advertisers running ads on Meta’s platforms must follow our Community Standards as well as our Advertising Standards.” However, groups that closely monitor social media content enforcement tell Fast Company this fits into a pattern of accounts affiliated with prominent right-wing commentators like Kirk and conservative outlets like the Daily Wire succeeding in running ads that violate Meta’s rules for acceptable content. The uptick in anti-trans content in particular, they note, is a pattern occurring against the backdrop of a new front in the culture wars where internet personalities are building lucrative brands by attacking trans rights. (Lady Ballers is a recent example, courtesy of the Daily Wire: a feature-length comedy about men dominating a women’s basketball league by posing as trans women. In November and December alone, the Daily Wire dropped over $1.6 million into Meta ads promoting the film.) This issue has begun to draw attention from everyone from GLAAD and ad industry watchdogs, to even members of Meta’s independent Oversight Board. It’s one that would seem to pose tough questions for Meta—ethically, the company should remove content that breaks the rules, but financially, it can make more money by deciding the content doesn’t. “Both Meta and the anti-LGBTQ creators are benefiting from this ecosystem,” Leanna Garfield, GLAAD’s social media safety program manager, tells Fast Company. “Ad content that, for example, characterizes LGBTQ people as ‘groomers’ or uses slurs poses an alarming conflict of interest, as Meta is making money from them.” Meta didn’t respond on the record to Fast Company‘s questions for this article, but a spokesperson did contend that “Meta provides more advertising transparency than any other platform, including any TV, radio, and print.” A surge of bad ads to police In recent years, a growing number of politicians, human rights groups, and watchdogs have claimed that not only is Meta doing a poor job of removing harmful content, but its process for making enforcement decisions is happening in what they see as a black box. Meta claims every ad is reviewed before going live, and must adhere to higher standards than user-generated content. It also claims a “key part” of the review process is a network of 465 trusted partners that flag “dangerous and harmful content” they encounter: “From local organizations such as Tech4Peace in Iraq and Defy Hate Now in South Sudan, to international organizations like Internews, our par