GLAAD’s 2022 Social Media Safety Index (SMSI) provides recommendations for the industry at large and reports on LGBTQ user safety across the five major social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok.
As a follow up to the pioneering 2021 SMSI, the 2022 edition of the report introduces a Platform Scorecard developed by GLAAD in partnership with Ranking Digital Rights and Goodwin Simon Strategic Research. The Platform Scorecard utilizes twelve LGBTQ-specific indicators to generate numeric ratings with regard to LGBTQ safety, privacy, and expression. After reviewing the platforms on measures like explicit protections from hate and harassment for LGBTQ users, offering gender pronoun options on profiles, and prohibiting advertising that could be harmful and/or discriminatory to LGBTQ people, all platforms scored under a 50 out of a possible 100.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
4 LETTER FROM GLAAD PRESIDENT & CEO SARAH KATE ELLIS
6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
8 ADVISORY COMMITTEE
9 INTRODUCTION & METHODOLOGY
11 TRANSPARENCY & ACCOUNTABILITY
12 ABOUT HATE (AND ABOUT LOVE)
17 THE SMSI PLATFORM SCORECARD SMSI PLATFORM SCORECARD SCORING SUMMARY SMSI SCORING SHEETS
30 MORE SUNLIGHT: The State of Transparency & Transparency Reporting
32 DANGEROUS & DISCREDITED: The State of “Conversion Therapy” Policies on Social Media Platforms
34 TRANS AND NON-BINARY PEOPLE ARE WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE: The State of Targeted Misgendering & Deadnaming Policies on Social Media Platforms
36 A GROWING CHORUS: Recent Reports on LGBTQ Social Media Safety
38 THE TIME HAS COME: Industry Oversight, Regulatory Solutions, & Public Safety
39 STANDING UP FOR CHANGE: Platform Accountability Campaigns, Tools, Organizations, & Initiatives
42 WE KEEP US SAFE: LGBTQ Digital Safety & Online Abuse Defense
43 A CONCLUDING CALL FOR ACTION
44 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
45 ON THE FIREWALL BETWEEN FINANCIAL SPONSORSHIP
& GLAAD’S ADVOCACY WO