The Censorship of LGBTQ+ Content Online Corresponds with Declines in Freedom for Everyone

In Freedom House’s latest Freedom on the Net report, analysts once again reported a decline in global internet freedom. They conclude that this is the 14th consecutive yearly decline in the overall measure across the variables and countries they monitor.

This deteriorating trend is particularly detrimental for minority groups who are more vulnerable to discrimination that feeds off from the real world into the online space and the other way around. Among these, the LGBTQ+ community is one of the most severely affected.

That is likely why Freedom House includes this specific community among those that it evaluates when considering internet freedom, including assessing whether LGBTQ+ people experience “extralegal intimidation or physical violence by state authorities or any other actor in relation to their online activities” in the countries it considers. In many ways, restrictions on the right of LGBTQ+ people to share and access content that is relevant to their interests is a harbinger of internet freedom and human rights conditions more broadly.

A frequent target

The Internet has created the illusion of democratization and free, universal access to information, which is why malign governments and other actors have turned to the online space to limit people’s ability to express dissenting opinions. Freedom House warns that 65% of global internet users live in a country where websites hosting dissenting content are blocked, and 52% of users live in a country where access to social media platforms are temporarily or permanently restricted. The organization refers to armed conflicts and elections as breeding grounds for the use of internet shutdowns, reprisals for online speech, censorship, content, and manipulation, among others.

Nonetheless, there is something much more insidious than blatant limitations, draconian laws, and outright violence. As information scientist Renato Rocha Souza points out, large content producers shape, create, and spread a subset of ideas, values, and voices. The average Internet user, however, is largely unaware of the consequences of Internet governance and these design choices that underpin our everyday lives online.

Although the LGBTQ+ community has been one of the main targets of content censorship by governments, states are not the only actors that restrict content. Big Tech companies and social media platforms are the main content moderators, which is why it is crucial to examine their role in restricting LGBTQ+ content. Literature on the subject points towards a previously mentioned argument: the role of private actors has a non-negligible impact on users' ability to access content online.

The amplification or, by contrast, the restriction or banning of LGBTQ+ content has the impact of shrinking the pool of possibilities for LGBTQ+ individuals. It prevents them from enjoying their digital rights and, in turn, limits their ‘right to thrive with dignity and freedom.’

In their paper “Internet control points as LGBT rights mediation,” communications scholars Laura De Nardis and Andrea M. Hackl state that the secrecy surrounding Google’s search algorithms obscures LGBTQ+ content arbitration online. ​​This is not only the case with Google’s search engine but also with other large social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok. Likewise, in “Restricted modes: Social media, content classification and LGBTQ sexual citizenship,” researchers argue tech companies have the power to classify categories, thus reinforcing existing social disparities and power imbalances. This is often called ‘algorithmic oppression’ and, in the case of LGBTQ+ individuals, it places them outside ‘normative sexual citizenship,’ blocking their expression, representation, and sometimes ways of life that depend on the Internet.

LGBTQ+ users are often unaware of the specific reasons their content is being filtered or blocked because algorithms and how they work are trade secrets, and, in some instances, this content is incorrectly labeled as sexually explicit. Social media platforms present themselves as neutral and justify their minimal interference on the grounds of protecting freedom of speech while turning a blind eye to the design choices that limit LGBTQ+ presence online and threats to their safety online.

In the case of Instagram, it has been widely reported that it disproportionately polices content related to transgender bodies while permitting similar pictures of cisgender users to go unchecked. Particular hashtags like #lesbian or #bi have heavily enforced content filters, regularly leaving out LGBTQ+ creators, artists, and activists. Instagram frequently labels LGBTQ+ content as sexually explicit or sensitive content. Stefanie Duguay, in her study of queer women’s self-representation and use of social media platforms, draws attention to Instagram’s co-moderation system that allows users to flag allegedly inappropriate content. This is said to cause queer women to be silenced, harassed, and discriminated against in this online space. Instagram states in one of its policies that “You can think of sensitive content as posts that don’t necessarily break our rules, but could potentially be upsetting to some people – such as posts that may be sexually suggestive or violent.” This evokes a false sense of neutrality in Instagram’s content moderation system that ultimately leaves affected users without little recourse to challenge the decision or even to know why it was restricted in the first place. Furthermore, it creates an ambiguous space where LGBTQ+ expression can be restricted if it is ‘upsetting to some people,’ even though the content is not necessarily violent or sexually charged.

In contrast to this alleged platform neutrality, it has been reported that Instagram has violated its own hate speech policy over 1,000 times. Moreover, according to a 2022 survey by the Anti-Defamation League, 26% of LGBTQ+ users of Instagram report experiencing harassment on the platform. This points towards a policy that appears to automatically deem LGBTQ+ content inappropriate while, at the same time, allowing and even profiting off of content that is harmful to the LGBTQ+ community online. When discussing how the hashtag #lesbian is filtered, a 2016 article in The Huffington Post showcases how, although Instagram is supposedly filtering out sexually explicit and sensitive content, the hashtag is saturated with the same pornographic images that it was supposed to restrict in the first place. Despite the fact that Instagram announced policies to fight online hate against the LGBTQ+ community, these are often not properly enforced. The Center for Countering Digital Hate found that out of 59 ads with anti-LGBTQ+ content on Facebook and Instagram, only one was taken down. The company earned $24,987 from these ads. This echoes the argument put forward by scholars that “design decisions for profit-oriented companies encapsulate broader monetization strategies,” which ends up reinforcing the existing discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals by rendering LGBTQ+ creators and activists invisible and boosting anti-LGBTQ+ narratives online, effectively allowing Big Tech companies to reproduce and profit from existing social structures.

Effects on rights

Each of these platforms, apps, or search engines has a different norm-setting environment, but ultimately, they all affect the ability of LGBTQ+ individuals to enjoy their human rights online. Restricting and filtering LGBTQ+ content online breaches LGBTQ+ individuals’ right to freedom of expression, in part because it requires surveillance. As highlighted by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to opinion and expression: “Surveillance may create a chilling effect on the online expression of ordinary citizens, who may self-censor for fear of being constantly tracked. Surveillance exerts a disproportionate impact on the freedom of expression of a wide range of vulnerable groups, including racial, religious, ethnic, gender and sexual minorities,” among others.”

The ability of queer individuals to access the Internet is also in jeopardy due to content restrictions since it presents LGBTQ+ individuals with serious impediments to accessing relevant content that might aid them in developing a sense of self-identity, belonging to the community, accessing health services, and sexual education.

Lastly, the measures taken by governments and social media platforms to remove content that disproportionately affects the LGBTQ+ community online are breaching the right to non-discrimination. Although these are often justified on the basis of some moral principle, such as to limit sensitive and sexually explicit content or the protection of children, it has been largely proven that harmless LGBTQ+ content is being removed while similarly themed content created by heteronormative users is not suffering the same consequences.

Despite the fact that the UN High Commissioner points out that restrictions on freedom of expression have to be “purportedly justified on grounds of alleged threats to public health, morality, or State security,” companies and governments do not typically provide a reason for censorship. When they do, it has become evident that censorious measures are either deployed in a discriminatory way or, most often, on content that is meant to educate or is intended to build community and individual identities. In fact, a UN report points towards the establishment of “obstacles to accessing information on safe sex and other health issues’ being ‘evidence of bias and discrimination.”

Beyond jeopardizing the human rights of LGBTQ+ individuals, there are other alarming effects that warrant further discussion. There is a clear link, highlighted both by the UN and an investigative group, between negative stereotyping of queer people and an increase in violence in the real world. However, restricting LGBTQ+ content online also has far-reaching societal consequences. For instance, sociologist David Lyon argues that “in everyday life, our life chances are continually checked or enabled, and our choices are channeled using various means of surveillance.” These modes of surveillance place individuals into coded categories that are typically based on stereotypes and prejudices, which incurs a much greater risk than a formal breach of the law. Surveillance, in Lyon’s words, is social sorting.

The Internet becomes a space that mirrors the social structures it is embedded in, and through classification, it facilitates or impedes individuals’ prospects. Thus, the fact that Instagram and other social media platforms, search engines including Google, and various governments deem LGBTQ+ content inappropriate and seek to conceal it from the public not only limits the ability of LGBTQ+ individuals to enjoy their human rights and develop their identity and community, but it also strengthens a societal structure by which LGBTQ+ individuals are deemed inappropriate.

Having examined the case of LGBTQ+ content restrictions online, it is clear that users suffering from this kind of online discrimination are left without recourse, and there are often unclear, insufficient, or discriminatory rules governing content online. Moreover, human rights documents tackling the issue of censorship also fall short of addressing the social implications. Only some UN documents and reports even mention censorship of LGBTQ+ content. Meanwhile, the multi-stakeholder Internet governance system favors the interests of big corporations and fuels focus on governmental cybersecurity, while barely including human rights concerns in the governance framework.

More must be done

Reports like the one drafted by Freedom House remind us of the pressing need that falls on government's shoulders to work towards “fostering a high-quality, diverse, and trust-worthy information space.” They stipulate how important it is to pay special attention to more vulnerable groups like the LGBTQ+ community.

In a status quo where the continuum between the online and the real world are blurring, this has potentially deadly consequences on the already stereotyped and somewhat negative view society holds on LGBTQ+ individuals. As a study asserts, “hate crimes must be conceptualized as a process set in geographical, social, historical and political context. We would add that ‘technological context is now a key part of this conceptualization.” We can extend this beyond hate crimes to say that discrimination also needs to be examined through the lens of technology and how the digital space contributes to it. Discrimination against queer individuals ought to also be scrutinized, taking into account what happens online.