Good news for anyone wanting to spew hate and make the world a worse place: Meta has amended its Hateful Conduct policy to be more permissive to bad behaviour, allowing divisive and discriminatory content to thrive on its platforms. Users on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are now allowed to call gay people “mentally ill”, women “property”, and entire ethnicities “diseases”.

The tech giant made significant changes to its Hateful Conduct policy on Tuesday, lifting prohibitions against a wide range of divisive and harmful rhetoric. Notably, Meta’s amended policy completely removed restrictions against dehumanising people on the basis of a “protected characteristic” by likening them to certain inanimate objects, filth, and diseases such as cancer. Users are also now permitted to state that protected characteristics don’t or shouldn’t exist, or are inferior.