Social media platform, Instagram has announced, on Friday, that any content — either pictures or videos — promoting conversion therapy will be banned. The service owned by Facebook did this in line with a move to “expand its existing policies on hate speech worldwide to include posts that advertise or promote the practice,” CNN reports.
According to the Human Rights Commission, conversion therapy, sometimes known as “reparative therapy,” is a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.
“We don’t allow attacks against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity and are updating our policies to ban the promotion of conversion therapy services,” Tara Hopkins, Instagram’s public policy director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said in a statement given to CNN.
“We have removed violating content from @coreissuestrusttv [Core Issues Trust]. We are always reviewing our policies and will continue to consult with experts and people with personal experiences to inform our approach,” she added. Core Issues Trust is a British Christian organisation that promotes conversion therapy.
“Conversion therapy is a hateful and fundamentally flawed practice that is counter to everything this state stands for. New York has been at the forefront of acceptance and equality for the LGBTQ community for decades – and today we are continuing that legacy and leading by example. We will not allow the misguided and the intolerant to punish LGBTQ young people for simply being who they are,” Andrew Cuomo,
the Governor of New York once said.
In May, Germany became the first country to pass a law that bans any form of conversion therapy for minors.
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