Rainbow-burning: how social media companies increase risks for LGBTQ+ people in Africa
Documented 214 threatening anti-LGBTQ+ posts across the platforms in five African countries; only 51 were removed when reported, blaming under-resourced moderation for African languages and engagement-driven algorithms.
Executive summary
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This Access Now report examines content moderation failures affecting LGBTQ+ communities across five African countries -- Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, and Ethiopia -- on TikTok, X, Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp. Researchers documented threatening posts, including incitement to violence, doxxing, non-consensual intimate imagery, disinformation, and deadnaming, collected between January 2023 and September 2024, and reported them to the platforms through in-app and direct channels.
Of 214 posts reported, only 51 were removed, a removal rate the report characterizes as a substantial moderation failure. The report links this outcome to uneven allocation of moderation resources by language, citing figures such as Meta's assignment of numerous moderators to English content in the EU while African languages receive comparatively little coverage, and similar imbalances at TikTok and X.
The report frames the phenomenon as "rainbow-burning" -- the weaponization of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment for political gain -- and concludes that under-resourced moderation for African languages, combined with engagement-driven algorithmic amplification, leaves LGBTQ+ users in the region exposed to documented, unaddressed harm.
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