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Sir Nick Clegg has claimed it is “unfeasible” for Facebook to stop social media users calling trans people “mentally ill”.
The former UK deputy prime minister, who is preparing to quit Facebook’s parent company Meta after six years as its head of global affairs, said it was unrealistic to ban such statements when they were used in mainstream discourse.
Asked at the World Economic Forum in Davos whether it was acceptable that people would now be able to state LGBT people have a mental illness on Facebook, Sir Nick said: “It just seems unfeasible for us for people to be able to say things on the floor of the House of Congress, or in everyday media, that they can’t say on social media.”
Earlier this month, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg revealed a broad revamp of the technology giant’s moderation rules.
In an update to the company’s “hateful conduct” policy, Meta carved out a rule to allow “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality”.
It will still ban targeted bullying and harassment.
LGBT groups warned the changes set a “dangerous precedent”. However, Mr Zuckerberg argued the company was seeking to “restore free expression”.
Sir Nick insisted the company’s new hate speech rules were “tailored”. He also defended the technology giant’s decision to scrap its fact-checking programme in the US and instead relying on a crowd-sourced system of “community notes” to call out disinformation.
He said: “We’re still spending $5bn (£4bn) a year this year on integrity on the platform. We still have by far the industry’s most sophisticated community standards.”
Sir Nick said the company still had tens of thousands of people working on content moderation.
The system is similar to one deployed by Elon Musk’s X. Sir Nick described the plans as more “scalable”.
Republicans had long complained that Facebook’s fact-checking process was politically biased and chafed against some of the company’s moderation rules on transgender rights.
Mr Zuckerberg argued earlier this month that the company’s fact-checkers, made up of third-party journalists and non-profits, had “destroyed more trust than they have created”.
The company’s fact-checking groups have rejected any claims of bias.
Sir Nick, the former Liberal Democrat leader who joined Meta in 2018, is preparing to stand down at Meta and will be replaced by Joel Kaplan, a former Republican party strategist.
The changing of the guard is seen as part of efforts by Mr Zuckerberg to build closer ties with Mr Trump. Sir Nick was instrumental in the suspension of Mr Trump’s account in 2021 following the Capitol riots on January 6.