Homophobic and hateful content on Facebook has become a contributing driver of psychological distress for the LGBTQI community in Hungary, who were already the target of former prime minister Viktor Orbán’s gender war policies.
“Beat them to death immediately”, “I would shoot this”, or “Death to the extreme genderfluid vermin,” are some of the statements found on Facebook by the Háttér Society, a Hungarian LGBTI+ rights organisation. Others refer to gay people as “scum” or “rats”.
Many remained online despite being reported as hate speech, the group found.
Their findings fed into a report published by Amnesty International on Tuesday (8 September), assessing Facebook’s shortcomings in moderating homophobic content, often driven by the hate campaign led by Orbán’s Hungarian government.
Meta’s moderation policy changes from early 2025 and the engagement-based design of the platform’s algorithm helped spread anti-LGBTQI messages online.
“Meta contributed to adverse human rights impacts experienced by LGBTQI people in Hungary through policy decisions, failures of due diligence, shortcomings in risk mitigation and failures to effectively address harmful content,” Amnesty said.
Ádám Kanicsár, a Hungarian LGBTQI activist and journalist, told EUobserver: “Most of the time, this hatred poisons or horrifies me only in my more vulnerable moments, but what must it do to a 16- or 18-year-old who is only beginning to understand their sexuality or gender identity and may already feel confused and frightened?”