QueeRadar documents anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech on social media

Over the past year, Azerbaijan’s social media space has become increasingly aggressive and unsafe for LGBTQ+ users. A new mini-report titled “Green Light to Hate”, prepared by QueeRadar, documents the widespread and increasingly unchecked circulation of hate speech targeting queer identities on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

The monitoring shows that queerphobic users now express hateful views more openly and more harshly than in previous years. This rhetoric is no longer confined to isolated comments: calls for violence, degrading language, and conspiratorial narratives reach wide audiences. Violent attacks and killings of queer people in Azerbaijan have already demonstrated that online hate poses a direct and real-world threat.

The QueeRadar report highlights the contradictory role of platforms owned by Meta in the Azerbaijani context. On the one hand, these platforms function as crucial digital spaces for self-expression, solidarity, and community-building for queer people. On the other hand, they increasingly facilitate harassment, intimidation, and online mobbing.

This contradiction has deepened following changes to Meta’s hate-speech policies in 2024. Under the revised rules, content that portrays LGBTQ+ people as “mentally ill” or otherwise pathologises queer identities may be allowed to remain online when framed as “political discourse.” International human rights organisations such as GLAAD and All Out have publicly criticised these changes, warning that they legitimise discriminatory narratives and normalise violent rhetoric.

According to the report, these developments pose particular risks for queer people in Azerbaijan. In the local context, activists and grassroots initiatives rely heavily on Facebook and Instagram as primary tools for communication, mutual support, and information-sharing. For years, social media platforms have served as rare spaces of visibility for queer writers, artists, and bloggers who are either absent from or dehumanised by traditional media. Today, however, harassment and abuse on these platforms are increasingly protected under the banner of “freedom of expression.”

The “Green Light to Hate” monitoring, conducted by QueeRadar, covers the period from January to July 2025 and analyses publicly available content from the Azerbaijani segments of Facebook and Instagram. The study examines the forms, dissemination mechanisms, and impacts of hate speech targeting LGBTQ+ individuals.

As part of the monitoring, 100 examples of hate speech were collected and categorised, ranging from explicit calls for violence to dehumanising language and conspiracy-driven narratives. The report also presents a separate table highlighting ten hate-filled posts that achieved particularly high reach and engagement, alongside infographics designed to make the findings more accessible.

The findings indicate that this hostility is not accidental. Influencers, media outlets’ social media pages, and semi-public figures play an active and often deliberate role in shaping and amplifying hate narratives. The normalisation of hostility in digital spaces increases real-world risks, leaving queer people more vulnerable to violence, social exclusion, and silencing.

The full version of QueeRadar’s “Green Light to Hate” report is available for download in PDF format. It provides a detailed analysis of the trends shaping Azerbaijan’s social media environment in the first half of 2025 and explains why these developments should concern not only LGBTQ+ communities, but society as a whole.

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