It's important that companies like Facebook stand up for marginalized communities, but empty platitudes aren't how rights are won. But a Silicon Valley company making the decision to restrict access to an opt-in feature in certain countries-even if for the safety of users in those places-is patronizing and denies agency to the brave LGBTQ individuals living there. Pride still means something for LGBTQI individuals in the region."Ī pride button may also seem trivial to many, including LGBTQ activists who have fought much harder battles over time. Nevertheless, he says, "Pride is about Western history that doesn't relate to our internal struggle in Lebanon, but we would still appreciate if this discrimination wasn't happening. Unfortunately, the world nowadays is built on the priorities of … people who are living in Western countries, especially white people who are living in those countries."
"It's the same when a certain terrorist attack happens in Lebanon, we don't have the safety check. "Facebook policies have a lot of discrimination in so many aspects," Aoun told me.
Joseph Aoun, community center manager of Helem-an organization that works for the protection of LGBTQI individuals in Lebanon-sees discriminatory undertones in Facebook's rollout of this-and other-features. Despite protests from queer users for nearly a decade, Facebook has continued to reaffirm the value of the policy in promoting "civility," despite evidence to the contrary.įurthermore, not all of the countries where the feature is restricted are alike Lebanon, for example, has made strides in recent years to decriminalize homosexual conduct…a far cry from Russia's level of persecution. That's a fair concern, to be sure-gay and bi men are being rounded up and killed in Chechnya, for example-but it's worth noting that Facebook's "authentic name" policy is part of why such users are at risk to begin with. While Facebook admits-in both its press release and in response to a question posed by a Singaporean user on its official LGBTQ page-that the feature isn't available everywhere yet, my testing demonstrated that it's widely available throughout the world…except in places where homosexuality is either illegal or of questionable legal status.įacebook hasn't said why the feature is restricted to those particular countries, but the company is likely worried about putting users at risk. My friends, allies to the LGBTQ community, followed the instructions put forth by Facebook and could see others using the button, but could not enable it for their own accounts.Īfter sending out some messages to friends in other places, I discovered that the feature was unavailable in a number of countries, including Egypt, Palestine, Bahrain, Lebanon, Singapore, Russia, and the UAE. Last week, I witnessed a conversation on Facebook where some of my friends in Cairo were confused as to why they couldn't use the feature. But as it turns out, some users are unable to access the feature at all.