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A new GLAAD report shows failing grades for Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X/Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok.
GLAAD published its Social Media Safety Index 2025 report with new findings that indicate how social media companies aren't doing enough to protect members of the LGBTQ+ community. In some cases, social networks are reportedly playing an active role in harming queer people.
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The advocacy group released its annual report on Tuesday, May 13, which showcased how top social media platforms are actively rolling back protections for marginalized communities and, subsequently, are fostering increasingly unsafe online spaces. The GLAAD report highlights that this is particularly true for social platforms owned by conglomerates such as Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) and Google.
GLAAD monitored six of the most-used social networks for this 2025 report: TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and YouTube. Based on findings, these social networks received scores — out of a possible 100 — evaluating how safe they are for the LGBTQ+ community.
Unfortunately, all six platforms had a failing grade. TikTok got a 56 (the highest score), while Elon Musk's X got a 30 (the lowest score).
The 2025 report reads:
"In GLAAD's day-to-day research and monitoring, and in reports from other organizations, researchers, and journalists, failures are seen repeatedly in both the development of policies and in their enforcement across major platforms…in addition to inadequate moderation of harmful anti-LGBTQ material, platforms also frequently over-moderate legitimate LGBTQ expression."
GLAAD underscored that this overall assessment included "wrongful takedowns of LGBTQ accounts and creators, mislabeling of LGBTQ content as 'adult' or 'explicit,' unwarranted demonetization of LGBTQ material, shadowbanning, and other kinds of suppression of LGBTQ content. Such unwarranted restrictions occur with non-LGBTQ content as well."
Meta is one of the largest perpetrators of rolling back safety measures for the LGBTQ+ community online. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, shifted the company's policies by reportedly removing guardrails for hate speech related to gender and immigration.
GLAAD also noted in its report that Google excluded "gender identity and expression" from YouTube's list of characteristic groups that are protected by company's policy from hate speech. As such, the GLAAD report suggests that Google-owned platforms are "no longer protecting transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people from hate and discrimination."
After rating these social platforms, GLAAD included recommendations to improve their scores, such as improving moderation guidelines with training focused on LGBTQ+ safety, data privacy, and the strengthening of existing policies.
"Social media platforms are vitally important for LGBTQ people as spaces where we connect, learn, and connect," GLAAD wrote in the executive summary of the report. "While there are many positive initiatives these companies have implemented to support and protect their LGBTQ users, they simply must do more."
The 2025 edition of the Social Media Safety Index report can be read in full via GLAAD.org.
Moises Mendez II is a culture journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. He covers internet culture and entertainment including television, movies, music, and more. For the last two years, he was a Culture Reporter at TIME Magazine. Before that, he was a freelance journalist and his work has appeared in The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Fast Company, and more. Moises holds a master's degree in Arts and Culture journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
Moises Mendez II is a culture journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. He covers internet culture and entertainment including television, movies, music, and more. For the last two years, he was a Culture Reporter at TIME Magazine. Before that, he was a freelance journalist and his work has appeared in The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Fast Company, and more. Moises holds a master's degree in Arts and Culture journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
