X enabled online abuse of LGBTQ+ persons in Poland, report finds News
Silar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
X enabled online abuse of LGBTQ+ persons in Poland, report finds

Amnesty International on Monday released a report finding that X (formerly Twitter) allowed for the spread of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TfGBV) against LGBTQ+ people in Poland.

The report charges that Elon Musk relaxed X’s Community Guidelines regarding the content allowed on the platform after taking ownership. Consequently, X has become “awash with content constituting TfGBV,” requiring “urgent, wide-ranging reforms.” Alia Al Ghussain, an Amnesty International researcher and advisor on technology and human rights, highlighted that “through inadequate content moderation practices and a lack of human rights due diligence, X has contributed to human abuses against members of Poland’s LGBTI community.”

Amnesty International’s research found that the examination of the tweets unveiled that “homophobic and transphobic content is highly prevalent on X, particularly for accounts that follow politicians who do not support the rights of LGBTI people.” Importantly, the algorithm responsible for the “For You” feed (also known as the recommender system) aims to increase user engagement. Therefore, content that is likely to garner interaction will be displayed to users. Amnesty International classified X’s business model as “surveillance-based” because it is dependent on intrusive data collection so that advertisements reach the target audience, similar to other social media platforms.

The group notes that X’s lack of funding in Polish language content moderation has led to the failure of handling TfGBV content. Only two Polish-speaking content moderators are “responsible for covering a population of 37.45 million people and 5.33 million X users.” The report states that “the combination of poor resourcing, policy, and practice has contributed to X becoming a platform awash with hateful content” against the LGBTQ+ community.

Furthermore, Amnesty International argues that X has not complied with the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA). Article 34(1) of the DSA states that providers of Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) must “diligently identify, analyse and assess any systemic risks in the [EU] stemming from the design or functioning of their service and its related systems, including algorithmic systems, or from the use made of their services.”

Article 34(1)(b) states that the risk assessment must regard whether there are systemic human rights risks by considering whether any fundamental rights, as enshrined by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU), are at risk. This includes the right to human dignity (Article 1 CFREU), right to respect for private and family life (Article 7 CFREU), right to the freedom of expression and information, including the freedom and pluralism of the media (Article 11 CFREU), and non-discrimination (Article 21 CFREU). The organization emphasizes that X has harmed the ability of LGBTQ+ individuals “to freely express themselves, to live free from discrimination and to feel safe in Polish society”.

Previously, the European Commission launched an investigation under the DSA against X in December 2023 and required X to give information on its recommender system in January 2025. Amnesty International states that the European Commission’s investigations should include X’s ability to effectively tackle the risk of TfGBV.

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