On the platforms Facebook and Instagram the so-called “conversion therapy” can no longer be advertised, the social media giant, which owns both platforms, announced to CNN on July 10.

“We do not allow attacks against people on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity and are updating our policy to prohibit the promotion of conversion therapy services,” said Tara Hopkins, Instagram’s public policy director for Europe, Middle East and Africa on the ban on advertising for conversion therapy.

The ban, which also applies to the United States, South America and Australia, is merely an extension of the guidelines regarding hate speech and deepens the already existing ban on advertisements promoting this method. The platform will also no longer recommend content related to conversion treatments, such as evidence of their effectiveness or sites promoting or supporting the method. The only exception is for postings that are in a legislative context.

Real rethinking or empty words?

The decision followed increasingly urgent requests from users to finally remove those accounts that advertise conversion treatments. Most recently, the queer social media community had demanded that the Instagram account of Core Issues Trust, a UK-based promoter of conversion treatments, be deleted.

Tara Hopkins announced that Instagram has already removed infringing content from the Core Issues Trust account. One look at @coreissuestrusttv is enough to know – the opposite is true!

The short news service Twitter has a similar ban on such content. A Twitter spokesperson said that their platform is already using the “Wishes of Harm” rule to enforce itself against content that promotes conversion processes. But here too, it quickly becomes clear that the enforcement of the ban leaves much to be desired.

Twitter said they are “working to make the training decks clearer so that team members have a variety of examples to refer to, and our enforcement of this rule is consistent and scalable globally.

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