LinkedIn removes hate speech protections against transgendered individuals

MANILA, Philippines – LinkedIn quietly removed its hate speech protections against transgendered individuals from its policies against hate speech and derogatory content.

The Open Terms Archive noted in a statement on Tuesday, July 29 that LinkedIn no longer has deadnaming and misgendering of transgender individuals as examples of prohibited conduct, adding that such was the only stealth change made to LinkedIn’s hate speech protections policies at that time.

Open Terms Archive added that, unlike other communications of changes made to its policies, “the service did not otherwise communicate publicly on this change in its Trust & Safety blog, like it did for example to describe how it improved enforcement of its community guidelines at scale.”

Engadget, in its report on the changes, said a LinkedIn spokesperson told them the underlying policies had not changed despite the change in wording.

“We regularly update our policies,” the company said, adding, “Personal attacks or intimidation toward anyone based on their identity, including misgendering, violates our harassment policy and is not allowed on our platform.” Despite this, LinkedIn did not offer explanations for the change.

Meanwhile, nonprofit media monitoring organization GLAAD told Engadget in a statement that “LinkedIn’s quiet decision to retract longstanding, best-practice hate speech protections for transgender and nonbinary people is an overt anti-LGBTQ move — and one that should alarm everyone.”

The organization added, “Following Meta and YouTube earlier this year, yet another social media company is choosing to adopt cowardly business practices to try to appease anti-LGBTQ political ideologues at the expense of user safety.” – Rappler.com