Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, has revised its hate speech guidelines to permit users to describe LGBTQ people as mentally ill.

The change, which affects billions of users across its platforms, was announced in new guidelines released Tuesday.

“We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird,’” Meta’s revised guidelines stated.

The revision follows Meta’s recent decision to end fact-checking on Facebook, replacing it with community notes similar to X’s. 

However, the move has drawn strong criticism from GLAAD, a prominent LGBTQ advocacy group, which condemned the updated guidelines.

“Without these necessary hate speech and other policies, Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanizing narratives,” GLAAD’s president, Sarah Kate Ellis, said in a statement.

“With these changes, Meta is continuing to normalize anti-LGBTQ hatred for profit — at the expense of its users and true freedom of expression. Fact-checking and hate speech policies protect free speech,” Ms Ellis added.