Twitter is a more dangerous social platform for LGBTQ users now than it was a year ago, according to a new survey from LGBTQ+ rights organization GLAAD.
The group’s third annual Social Media Safety Index (SMSI) report finds a pullback and inconsistent enforcement of company policies addressing anti-LGBTQ online hate speech.
“Dehumanizing anti-LGBTQ content on social media such as misinformation and hate have an outsized impact on real-world violence and harmful anti-LGBTQ legislation,” said GLAAD CEO and President Sarah Kate Ellis.
“Social media platforms too often fail at enforcing their own policies regarding such content,” she added.
GLAAD’s SMSI Platform Scorecard evaluates LGBTQ safety, privacy and expression on five major platforms — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter — based on 12 LGBTQ-specific indicators. These indicators include explicit protections from hate and harassment for LGBTQ users, offering gender pronoun options on profiles, and prohibiting ads that could be harmful and/or discriminatory to LGBTQ people.
Regular CNBC guest and New York Magazine Editor at Large Kara Swisher sits on GLAAD’s SMSI advisory committee of more than a dozen industry experts.
Not just Twitter
Twitter is not alone. The other four major social media platforms also received low scores on the SMSI scorecard, with Facebook garnering a 61% and TikTok posting a 57% out of a possible 100%. See below for a breakdown of the results.
GLAAD found that the platforms continue to fall short at establishing and enforcing safeguards meant to protect LGBTQ users from hate speech. Lack of transparency around user data also remains a privacy concern.
Jack Malon, a YouTube spokesperson, told CNBC the platform’s policies prohibit content that promotes violence or hatred against the LGBTQ+ community: “Over the last few years, we’ve made significant progress in our ability to quickly remove this content from our platform and prominently surface authoritative sources in search results and recommendations.”
TikTok and Meta both told CNBC their respective platforms remain committed to protecting the LGBTQ+ community.
“We’re proud to have strong policies aimed at protecting LGBTQ+ individuals from harassment and hate speech, including misgendering and deadnaming, and we’re always looking to strengthen our approach, informed both by our community and the advice of experts, such as GLAAD,” said a TikTok spokesperson.
A Meta spokesperson said the company is open to collaboration to create a safer platform for all users: “We engage with civil society organizations around the world in our work to design policies and create tools that foster a safe online environment.”
Of the five major platforms included in this study, Twitter was the only one with scores that declined from last year. Its score slipped to 33% from 44.7%.
Twitter’s hateful conduct policy previously stated that Twitter prohibits “targeting others with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.” The second line was removed in April, according to archived versions of the page from the Wayback Machine dated two months prior.
Twitter sent a poop emoji in response to an emailed request for comment. The company did not immediately respond to a direct message seeking comment via Twitter.
Elon Musk took over as owner and CEO of the social platform in October 2022. Musk told CNBC’s David Faber in May that as an “aspirational” free speech absolutist, he defends a “community notes” model to protect users on the platform.
“My overall kind of vision for actual Twitter is to be a cybernetic collective mind for humanity,” said Musk. “You can think of community notes as like an error correction on information in the network. And the effect of community notes is actually bigger than it would seem. It’s bigger than the number of notes because if somebody knows that they’re going to get noted they are less likely to say something that is false, because it’s embarrassing to get community noted.”
The debate over a community notes approach is that it leaves the burden on those affected by hate speech to report harmful posts. GLAAD says this approach causes “sheer traumatic psychological impact of being relentlessly exposed to slurs and hateful conduct.”
A dangerous environment
So far in 2023, GLAAD has documented more than 160 acts or threats of violence at LGBTQ events. GLAAD’s recent Accelerating Acceptance report found that 86% of non-LGBTQ Americans agree that exposure to online hate content leads to real-world violence.
“There is an urgent need for effective regulatory oversight of the tech industry — and especially social media companies — with the goal of protecting LGBTQ people, and all people,” said GLAAD’s senior director of social media safety, Jenni Olson.
GLAAD is calling on social media platforms to take responsibility for ineffective policies, products and algorithms that create a dangerous environment for LGBTQ users, adding that actions from the platforms are limited because “enragement leads to profitable engagement.”
Olson added that social media industry leaders “continue to prioritize corporate profits over the public interest.”
“As many of the companies behind these platforms recognize Pride month,” said Ellis. “They should recognize their roles in creating a dangerous environment for LGBTQ Americans and urgently take meaningful action.”
A woman walks past a logo of WhatsApp during a Meta event in Mumbai, India, on Sept. 20, 2023.
Niharika Kulkarni | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Meta is pushing back against a ban on WhatsApp from government devices.
The chief administrative officer, or CAO, of the U.S. House of Representatives told staffers on Monday that they are not allowed to use Meta’s popular messaging app. The CAO cited a lack of transparency about WhatsApp’s data privacy and security practices as the reason for the ban, according to a report by Axios that cited an internal email from the government office.
The CAO told House staff members in the email that they are not allowed to download WhatsApp on their government devices or access the app on their smartphones or desktop computers, the report said. Staff members must remove WhatsApp from their devices if they have the app installed on their devices, the report said.
“Protecting the People’s House is our topmost priority, and we are always monitoring and analyzing for potential cybersecurity risks that could endanger the data of House Members and staff,” U.S. House Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindor told CNBC in a written statement.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone on Monday responded to the report via a post on X, saying the company disagrees “with the House Chief Administrative Officer’s characterization in the strongest possible terms.”
“We know members and their staffs regularly use WhatsApp and we look forward to ensuring members of the House can join their Senate counterparts in doing so officially,” Stone said.
In a separate X post, Stone said WhatsApp’s encrypted nature provides a “higher level of security than most of the apps on the CAO’s approved list that do not offer that protection.”
Some of the messaging apps the CAO said are acceptable alternatives to WhatsApp include Microsoft Teams, Signal and Apple’s iMessage, the Axios report said.
Meta is currently embroiled in an antitrust case with the Federal Trade Commission over the social media company’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram.
The Super Micro Computer headquarters in San Jose, California, on Dec. 3, 2024.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Super Micro Computer shares fell about 6% on Monday after the server maker said it plans to offer $2 billion in convertible notes, maturing in 2030.
A company’s stock often falls on the announcement of a convertible offering because the eventual conversion to equity could dilute existing shareholders’ stakes.
Super Micro, which has seen its business boom due to soaring demand for Nvidia’s artificial intelligence processors, said in a press release that it plans to use the proceeds from the offering for “general corporate purposes, including to fund working capital for growth and business expansion.” It also said it would spend about $200 million to repurchase its stock from the note issuers.
Even after Monday’s slide, Super Micro shares are up close to 40% so far in 2025 as the company remains one of a handful of server makers that can sell systems based around new chips from Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Intel soon after they start shipping. The stock has been viewed by Wall Street as an AI pure play that will appreciate with tech megacap companies expected to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers to support AI workloads.
Super Micro also secured a major contract with a data center in Saudi Arabia when President Donald Trump visited the Middle East in May.
Super Micro “has emerged as a market leader in AI-optimized infrastructure,” Raymond James analysts wrote in a report last month, saying that 70% of the company’s revenue was attributable to AI. The analysts recommend buying the stock.
Investors soured on Super Micro in March and April on concerns about tariffs, and in May the company slashed its fiscal 2025 guidance and chose not to reiterate its previous forecast for $40 billion in fiscal 2026 sales, due to tariff and AI chip uncertainty.
The stock has recouped some of those losses but is still trading well below its high for the year reached in February.
Super Micro had a tumultuous 2024 largely because of accusations of accounting irregularities, and was forced to refile financials with the SEC in order to avoid delisting from the Nasdaq. Super Micro also named a new auditor, removed its CFO and named additional members to its board of directors.
An Atlas V rocket of United Launch Alliance (ULA) lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on June 23, 2025.
Gregg Newton | Afp | Getty Images
Amazon‘s second batch of Kuiper internet satellites reached low Earth orbit on Monday, adding to its plans for a massive constellation and ramping up competition with SpaceX’s Starlink.
A United Launch Alliance rocket carrying 27 Kuiper satellites lifted off from a launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 6:54 a.m. ET, according to a livestream.
“We have ignition and lift off of United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet constellation, continuing a new chapter in low Earth orbit satellite connectivity,” Ben Chilton, an ordnance engineer at ULA, said on the livestream following the launch.
Six years ago, Amazon unveiled its plans to build a constellation of internet-beaming satellites in low Earth orbit, called Project Kuiper. The service will compete directly with Elon Musk’sStarlink, which currently dominates the market and has 8,000 satellites in orbit.
Amazon in April successfully sent up 27 Kuiper internet satellites into low Earth orbit, a region of space that’s within 1,200 miles of the Earth’s surface.
The 54 craft currently in orbit are the start of Amazon’s planned constellation of 3,236 satellites. The company has to meet a Federal Communications Commission deadline to launch half of its total constellation, or 1,618 satellites, by July 2026.
The company has booked more than 80 launches with several providers, including rival SpaceX, to deliver Kuiper its satellites into orbit.