You can now report Twitter users for targeted deadnaming and misgendering.
Twitter updated its Terms of Service last night (23 November) to protect trans people from online abuse.
The new protection comes under the heading: ‘Repeated and/or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes or other content that degrades someone.’
It continues: ‘We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful steroetypes about a protected category.
‘This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals,’ it said.
Targeted misgendering is the process of deliberately using the wrong pronouns when addressing someone. While targeted deadnaming is deliberately using the birth name of someone who has legally changed their name to affirm their identity.
Twitter users can report these slurs by using the ‘It’s abusive or harmful’ option, then ‘Includes targeted harassment’ or ‘It directs hate against a protected category’.
Transgender advocates took to Twitter to commend Twitter for protecting trans people against online abuse.
One Twitter user wrote: ‘GOOD. It’s about time.’
Another tweeted: ‘A nice thing for Friday.’
Another wrote: ‘If we are going to have rules against harassment, these updated rules makes sense.’
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has reportedly donated $10,000 to a notorious anti-LGBTI politician.
Bezos and his wife Mackenzie donated a combined total of $10,800 to Republican Senator Cory Gardner. They individually donated $5,400 each, which is the maximum amount allowed for individual donors in Colorado.
The couple donated to Gardner’s 2020 reelection fund in September this year, according to CNBC.
Gardner from Colorado has a long history of anti-LGBTI voting. In 2006, he voted no to allowing same-sex couples to adopt and has long voted against same-sex couples right to marry.
Bezo wasn’t the only Amazon employee to donate to Gardner’s reelection campaign.
Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky, Amazon Worldwide Consumer CEO Jeffrey Wilkie and Senior Vice Presidents David Clark and Doug Herrington all donated $5,400. Other Amazon employees donated smaller amounts of money.
Bezos, his wife and Amazon have long supported LGBTI causes, so it’s unclear why they would donate to a politician with an anti-LGBTI history.
Last year, Human Rights Campaign gave Bezos its Equality Award for his ‘outstanding efforts of those who publicly stand up for the LGBTQ community, committing their time and energy to improve the lives of LGBTQ people’.
CNBC noted Gardner has co-sponsored a number of Amazon supported bills. The company also spent millions of dollars on Gardner’s DIGIT Act. The Act would create an Internet of Things working group in the Commerce Department.
We, the undersigned businesses, stand with the millions of people in America who identify as transgender, gender non-binary, or intersex, and call for all such people to be treated with the respect and dignity everyone deserves.
We oppose any administrative and legislative efforts to erase transgender protections through reinterpretation of existing laws and regulations. We also fundamentally oppose any policy or regulation that violates the privacy rights of those that identify as transgender, gender non-binary, or intersex.
In the last two decades, dozens of federal courts have affirmed the rights and identities of transgender people. Cognizant of growing medical and scientific consensus, courts have recognized that policies that force people into a binary gender definition determined by birth anatomy fail to reflect the complex realities of gender identity and human biology.
Recognizing that diversity and inclusion are good for business, and that discrimination imposes enormous productivity costs (and exerts undue burdens), hundreds of companies, including the undersigned, have continued to expand inclusion for transgender people across corporate America. Currently more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500 have clear gender identity protections; two-thirds have transgender-inclusive healthcare coverage; hundreds have LGBTQ+ and Allies business resource groups and internal training efforts.
Transgender people are our beloved family members and friends, and our valued team members. What harms transgender people harms our companies.
We call for respect and transparency in policy-making, and for equality under the law for transgender people.
Accenture
Adobe Systems Inc.
Airbnb
Altria Group
Amalgamated Bank
Amazon
American Airlines
Apple
Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP)
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade
BNY Mellon
Cargill
Cisco Systems Inc.
Citi
Clifford Chance
The Coca Cola Company
Corning Incorporated
Corteva Agriscience™, the Agriculture Division of DowDuPont
The Dow Chemical Company
Deutsche Bank
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Facebook
Fastly, Inc.
Google
Hogan Lovells International LLP
HSBC
IBM Corporation
Intel Corporation
Intuit Inc.
Iron Mountain
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Levi Strauss & Co.
LinkedIn
Lush Handmade Cosmetics
Lyft
Marriott International
MassMutual
MGM Resorts International
Microsoft Corp.
Nike, Inc.
PepsiCo
Replacements, Ltd.
Ropes & Gray
Royal Bank of Canada
S&P Global
Salesforce
Sheppard Mullin
Sodexo Inc.
Splunk
State Street Corporation
TiVo Corporation
Trillium Asset Management
Twitter Inc.
Uber
Warby Parker
The new owners of OUT Magazine and The Advocate, two major LGBTI publications, allegedly donated money to anti-gay politicians.
Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) reports that step brothers Adam Levin and Maxx Abramowitz bought the two publications, under the umbrella of PRIDE Media, back in September. The brothers are the founders of Oreva Capital, a private equity firm, as well.
In addition to PRIDE Media, Levin and Abramowitz are also, respectively, the CEO and lead investor of the High Times Magazine parent company, High Times Holdings.
WWD found that Levin has donated money to numerous Republican politicians with anti-LGBTI agendas. For instance, supporting religiously-based discrimination. These politicians include Devin Nunes, Dean Heller, and Josh Mandel.
Additionally, the brothers support Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican lawmaker who earlier this year said it’s okay for realtors to refuse selling homes to gay people. High Times Magazine praised Rohrabacher on this year’s list of cannabis supporters.
‘Adam is a staunch supporter of pro-Israel, pro-cannabis and LGBT issues and consistently works across the political spectrum to ensure he’s advocating effectively on behalf of each of these communities,’ a PRIDE spokesperson told WWD of Levin’s political contributions.
Levin himself spoke to San Diego Gay & Lesbian News (SDGLN) following the publication of the WWD article.
Levin, a straight man, blamed the bad press coverage on ‘a fired employee who was upset.’
He pointed out that he has also donated to Democratic politicians. These politicians include Adam Schiff, Gavin Newson, Jon Chiang, and Dan Adler.
According to the author of the SDGLN piece, the openly gay CEO of PRIDE Media, Nathan Coyle, said Levin will be more careful about who he donates to in the future.
‘I can’t imagine someone rationally thinking this but obviously people believe what they read,’ Levin said of the WWD piece and the following backlash. ‘And this has been hurtful and led to both my brother and I receiving hate mail and personal attacks.’
Hyatt Hotels has announced they will no longer host hate groups in their spaces.
The decision comes after one of their hotels in Virginia hosted an annual conference for an anti-Muslim group.
At the Skift Global Forum in New York City on Thursday (27 September), CEO Mark Hoplamazian announced the decision.
‘If a group is primarily focused on disparaging a group by virtue of their identity…that’s really where we need to draw the line,’ he said.
Hoplamazian also added that traits like empathy and inclusiveness are ‘deeply personal to me’. He also clarified that groups like the anti-Muslim one in Virginia are an ‘infrequent’ form of business for Hyatt.
Hyatt employees also received a memo the same day announcing the new policy change.
Hoplamazian and other travel CEOs met with Donald Trump earlier in September to discuss the United States’ policy as a welcoming country for travelers.
‘The purpose of the visit was to focus on things that we’re trying to promote as an industry,’ he explained.
‘We talked about extending a message of warm welcome to the rest of the world which we feel is critical. Our pitch is that that’s actually most effective when it comes from the top. We didn’t get any commitments on that but we think we made our case.’
Nearly three-quarters of LGBT people have experienced mental health issues because of work, a survey has found.
The poll, commissioned by Business in the Community with HR firm Mercer, found 72 percent of LGBT people have experience problems as a result of work.
A quarter of LGBT employees (26 percent) said they had hidden their identity at work in the last year because they were afraid of discrimination, it also found.The survey, conducted by YouGov, was published ahead of World Mental Health Day and shows LGBT people are disproportionately affected by mental health issues.
The results show only 60 percent of LGBT employees feel comfortable being open about their sexual orientation at work, while 32 percent of managers have disguised that they are LGBT due to fear of discrimination.
Twenty-nine percent of bisexual employees said they had hidden their identity.
BAME LGBT employees are more than twice as likely as white employees to have experienced negativity from customers and clients (23 percent compared to 11 percent).
Seven percent have been physically attacked by colleagues or customers in the last year, rising to 15 percent of BAME people, 20 percent of non-binary people and 30 percent of senior leaders.
The research calls for employers to break the culture of silence that surrounds mental health and to invest in basic mental health literacy for all employees.
The research, conducted by the Human Rights Campaign, found that 46 percent of LGBT employees in the US hide their sexuality at their place of employment.
This represented just a four percent drop from HRC’s 2008 Degrees of Equality report, which was created before Barack Obama’s presidency, before same-sex marriage was legalised across the US and before transgender rights became a prominent issue in the civil rights struggle.
More than half of workers (53 percent) said they had heard jokes about lesbian or gay people at least once in a while at work.
A further one in five queer employees reported to HRC that they had been told or had colleagues imply that they should dress in a more feminine or masculine manner.
Nearly one-in-three LGBT+ people said they had felt unhappy or depressed at work.
Facebook has blocked ads containing LGBTI material for being ‘political’.
Adverts for everything from a gay fairy tale cabaret in Las Vegas to a Spanish-language social group for Latino men were deemed political by the social media site’s monitors. This is despite none of them containing any form of advocacy or political views, according to The Washington Post.
This comes as Facebook tries to regulate the use of its site for political means after Russian-state actors were accused of using adverts to sway the 2016 US election and the UK Brexit vote. The site uses both automated and human monitors to filter out content.
Facebook’s new policy requires people using ads for political purposes register with the company. For this, the user would need to divulge a lot of personal information. This includes a driver’s license or passport, a personal home address, and the last four digits of a Social Security number.
However, their public database found that these innocuous LGBTI adverts were deemed ‘political’. This means they’d have to register with the company in order to post them. Many told The Post they didn’t know this option existed.
Facebook told the paper that the majority of these were made in error.
A shaky history with LGBTI people
Yet the company has taken steps recently that seem out of line with this desire to curb the use of politics on their site.
Once the news became public, the company took down the ad, blaming it on a mistake in the ‘micro-targeting algorithm’. However, it’s unclear how these ads were not considered political, as gay conversion therapy is illegal in many places around the world.
‘We are against Pinkdot in Singapore’, a group of people who oppose Singapore’s annual pride event, Pink Dot, were removed for violating the community standards.
However, the group was put back up. A Facebook spokesperson claimed that the page should not have been removed entirely, only some of its posts.
Dating app Grindr today launched its new ‘Kindr’ initiative. The project arrives in response to complaints from some users after experiencing racist, body-shaming or stigmatizing language.
Grindr announced Kindr a few weeks ago, but provided scant details as to what the project would entail.
Today, it released the first of a series of videos in which it addresses the debate around online behaviour. It also unveiled new user community guidelines. These state profiles face moderation if they list what they disliked based on racial group or gender expression
The first video features app users explaining why stating what you’re not looking for – in relation to racial groups – is problematic.
It starts by stating some blatantly racist language users have heard online (‘Go back to Mexico’, ‘People like you are the reason Ebola exist’), before moving on to the ‘covert racism’ of profile preferences.
One man explains how reading exclusionary messages online feels like walking down a street and seeing shop signs welcoming only one kind of customer.
‘Racism is you thinking I’m not going to be smarter than you when you first meet me,’ says one black contributor, Rakeem Cunningham.
Rakeem Cunningham (Photo: Grindr)
‘Or when black people are articulate and other people go, “Oh, you’re so well spoken!” Like, that’s the stuff that bothers me, and that’s the stuff I think needs to be addressed. I think the racism that’s not overt but that’s covert is the main problem.’
An Asian contributor, Joel Kim Booster, says that he began to wonder if there was something wrong with him, or if there was something he should be ashamed about when interacting with guys online. ‘It opened my eyes to a hierarchy that I wasn’t participating in before.’
Why not just stay quiet instead of needlessly offending someone?
‘If you don’t put “No Asians” in your profile, that doesn’t mean you have to fuck Asians now. It just means I don’t have to see it,’ he says.
‘It is not racist to not be attracted to me personally,’ he adds. ‘But for you to say “I know what every Asian guy looks like and I know for a fact that I would not be attracted to any of them…” Like that comes from a racist place because you don’t know what we all look like. That’s ugly.
‘We have only so much in our profiles to get across whatever the fuck we want to get across to all the other guys on this app, and you’re going to take space to narrow it by what you don’t want. Just tell me what you do like. If you tell me you like the fucking Jonas Brothers, I know I’m not for you.’
Former Queer Eye alum Jai Rodriguez also takes part. He points out, ‘You don’t know what the person on the other side of the phone is going through. You have no idea what they’re experience is or what else they have going on. Or what that comment might do to them.’
Many talk about the impact of language.
‘No matter what battle you’re going through, you don’t have to break other people in order to feel good,’ says contributor Jasmine Aksornkij. ‘You don’t have to hurt other people in order to make you feel uplifted.
The video ends with the campaign’s tagline: ‘It’s time to play nice.’
‘Responsibility to not only protect our users, but also to set the standard’
‘Sexual racism, transphobia, fat and femme shaming and further forms of othering such as stigmatization of HIV positive individuals are pervasive problems in the LGBTQ community,’ said Landen Zumwalt, head of communications at Grindr, in a press statement.
‘These community issues get brought onto our platform, and as a leader in the gay dating space, Grindr has a responsibility to not only protect our users, but also to set the standard for the broader community that we serve.
‘Online discrimination has reached epidemic proportions affecting not only Grindr but other social networks. Our ‘Kindr’ initiative is a rallying call for Grindr and our community to take a stand against sexual racism and all forms of othering.
‘Together, we will work to maintain a welcoming and inclusive environment and end the need for people to include exclusionary statements on profiles.’
New community guidelines and moderation
Grindr says it will be rolling out more videos over the next five weeks. It has also updated its community guidelines. In these, it says that moderators will act if they see people making statements such as ‘No Asians’ in their profile descriptions.
‘We have a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination, harassment, and abusive behavior. We want you to be yourself, but not at the expense of someone else. Anyone found bullying, threatening, or defaming another user will be banned.
‘We will also remove any discriminatory statements displayed on profiles. You’re free to express your preferences, but we’d rather hear about what you’re into, not what you aren’t.
‘Profile language that is used to openly discriminate against other users’ traits and characteristics (“No fats, no fems, no Asians”) will no longer be tolerated and will be subject to review by our moderation team.’
Other apps take action
Grindr is not the only dating app acting to moderate racist language and stigmatizing behavior. Last week, Chappy launched its own ‘zero tolerance for abuse’ campaign. Scruff also announced earlier this month that it would make its ‘ethnicity’ field optional.
Grindr was launched in 2009 and now claims to have 3.8million daily active users. It was sold in its entirety to Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech last year. Grindr remains headquartered in Hollywood, California, but The company is considering an initial public offering.
Jeff Cobb was denied early boarding (jeffcobb415/twitter)
A gay couple has claimed that they were denied early boarding with their daughter—only to see straight parents walk through with children.
Jeff Cobb and his husband were flying with Taiwanese airline EVA Air from San Francisco to Thailand on Saturday (September 1) when they were reportedly separated on the false basis that only one parent could accompany a child onto the plane.
Cobb described on Twitter how “my husband and I were told only one of us could join our 19-month-old in the family boarding group of EVA Air 27 from SFO on 9/1/18.
“I explained we were both the fathers of the child, and they said it was their policy that only one parent can board and the other has to wait in the normal line.
“Not having flown EVA before, I accepted it and let my husband and child go while I boarded later.”
But Cobb said he was in for a surprise when he was finally reunited with his husband and daughter.
“When I met him on the plane, he said there were many other (straight) families all boarding together,” he wrote.
“I’m very disappointed that the EVA ground staff at SFO thinks it’s ok to separate same-sex families during boarding.
“I will definitely not be flying this airline again after this incident.”
When they got their connection in Thailand with EVA Air, the two dads were allowed to walk through early boarding with their daughter, according to Attitude.
An EVA Air spokesperson said: “EVA Air and most especially our San Francisco International Airport team sincerely apologise to all the passengers affected by this incident.
Cobb said he “will definitely not be flying this airline again after this incident” (EVA Airways Corp./Facebook)
“It is our policy that passengers travelling with infants can have priority boarding. The policy does not limit the number of accompanying adults or specify the relationship to the infant.
“This unfortunate incident was due to misunderstanding. Our San Francisco ground-handling agent understood that only one parent could board with an infant.
“We have apologised to our passengers and reminded our airport staff and agents about our priority boarding policy so that we can prevent this kind of incident from happening again.”
Last year, Grant Morse and husband Sam said Southwest denied them priority boarding to a flight because the airline didn’t consider them and their three children to be a family.
California Democratic Party Chair Eric Bauman is calling for a boycott of In-N-Out Burger after the fast-food chain donated $25,000 to the California GOP to boost party coffers ahead of the November election.
Bauman called for the boycott of the popular California-based chain via his Twitter account late Wednesday with the following: “Et tu In-N-Out? Tens of thousands of dollars donated to the California Republican Party… it’s time to #BoycottInNOut – let Trump and his cronies support these creeps… perhaps animal style!”
According to a public filing dated Aug. 28, In-N-Out Burger made a contribution for $25,000 to the California Republican Party on Monday. The document on the California secretary of state’s website also lists the GOP’s “late contribution” as going toward the Nov. 6 election.
This isn’t the first time the privately owned burger chain has donated to the California GOP. Public records show the chain donated $30,000 in August 2017 and another $30,000 in May 2016.
However, In-N-Out Burger also donated extensively to a moderate Democratic PAC known as “Californians for Jobs and a Strong Economy.” The pro-business PAC received $50,000 in contributions in May 2018 and $30,000 in both 2016 and 2017.
CNBC reached out to the California Democratic Party and Bauman for comment.
In a statement, In-N-Out Burger Executive Vice President Arnie Wensinger said the company “made equal contributions to both Democratic and Republican Political Action Committees in the state of California. For years, In-N-Out Burger has supported lawmakers who, regardless of political affiliation, promote policies that strengthen California and allow us to continue operating with the values of providing strong pay and great benefits for our Associates.”
Wensinger added, “We have been fortunate to do business in this great state for almost 70 years. While it is unfortunate that our contributions to support both political parties in California has caused concern with some groups, we believe that bipartisan support is a fair and consistent approach that best serves the interests of our company and all of our customers.”
In-N-Out operates more than 330 restaurants in six states, but most of the locations are in California. The chain, known for its “Double-Double” hamburgers and “animal style” burgers and fries, was founded in 1948 in Southern California and is majority owned by billionaire Lynsi Snyder.
Some social media users were unhappy to hear about the recent GOP donation and agreed with the call for a boycott. The hashtag #BoycottInNOut was trending Thursday on Twitter after Bauman used it in his tweet.
One user, @KatrinaHagen2, said the burger chain’s food has been “a staple” of their kids and friends but added that the boycott was “a no brainer.”
“They’ve lost me as a customer,” said user @makingtheater. “Pity, but I will find my animal style somewhere better.”
@PatClearySoCal tweeted: “Guess I ate my last InNOut burger last week. I will write them to let them know about my decision. Maybe we all should.”
Then again, the boycott inspired others to have lunch at the burger chain.
Another user, @ramincol, called the boycott “stupid” and asked whether “we have gone just crazy with boycotts. If a business wants to support either party why does it matter?”
California GOP gubernatorial candidate John Cox also weighed in on the controversy by making a point to have lunch at one of the restaurants. Cox also took a jab at his challenger, Gavin Newsom — a Democrat and the state’s current lieutenant governor.
