The GLAAD Social Media Safety Index & Platform Scorecard for 2026 was released this week and, according to the organization, found continued declines in policies related to LGBTQ+ safety, privacy and expression across major social media platforms.
The report and scorecard evaluate and rank “platform policies regarding LGBTQ safety, privacy, and expression” and include TikTok, Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram and Threads), X and YouTube.
According to the report, all but one platform, TikTok, lost points from 2025 when it came to public-facing policies “prohibiting hate and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, and other protected characteristics.”
TikTok remained on par with last year’s score, while Instagram dropped 4 points, Facebook dropped 5 points and YouTube dropped 11 points compared to 2025. Explaining YouTube’s drop in score, GLAAD noted that, “During the 2026 research cycle, we found that YouTube’s policies no longer contain an explicit exception for LGBTQ people using LGBTQ-related slurs in a self-expressive manner.”
TikTok was the only platform to score more than 50 points out of 100, while X remained the lowest at 29 points.
GLAAD used a 14-point methodology to examine social platforms, including public-facing policies that protect LGBTQ people from hate, harassment and violence, deadnaming, promotion of conversion therapy, demonetization of LGBTQ+ accounts and more.
“As some social media companies flout the basic best practices of platform trust and safety, everyone, customers, creators, and brands, must confront a difficult truth: Meta and too many of its peers have traded a commitment to human rights for the overt backing of anti-LGBTQ hate and the actors who traffic in it,” said GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis in her official letter accompanying the report. “The SMSI exists to track these dangerous backslides. While some policy rollbacks have happened without public announcement, this report and GLAAD’s Social Media Safety Program shine a bright spotlight on the ways platforms are failing their users, even as consumers and employees demand, and deserve, better.”
To read the full report, visit glaad.org/smsi/social-media-safety-index-2026/