Licence to Hate

What happens when hate is no longer moderated, but quietly permitted?

Over the past year, the Azerbaijani segment of social media has become a more hostile space for LGBTIQ+ users. On platforms like Facebook and Instagram, hate speech against queera has not only multiplied, it has also become louder, more explicit, and more widely accepted. What unfolds online does not stay there: in Azerbaijan, digital hate has already been linked to violent attacks and murders of queer citizens.

Globally, Meta platforms have long played a paradoxical role. They have enabled visibility, connection, and community-building for marginalised groups, while simultaneously functioning as spaces where harassment and abuse flourish. In 2024, this contradiction deepened. Meta introduced significant changes to its hate speech policies and weakened protections for LGBTIQ+ users. Under the new rules, content that labels queer identities as “mentally ill” or frames them as pathological can remain online if presented as “political discourse.” Human rights organisations such as GLAAD and All Out warned that these changes effectively legitimise discriminatory narratives and normalise violent rhetoric.

For queer activists in Azerbaijan — many of whom rely on Meta platforms as their primary spaces for expression, visibility, and mutual support — these shifts have sharply increased risks. The policy rollback has emboldened users to engage in open harassment, blurred the line between opinion and incitement, and deepened a pervasive sense of vulnerability. What was once reportable abuse is now often treated as acceptable “debate.”

It was in this context that we undertook “Licence to Hate,” a mini-research project examining hate speech targeting LGBTIQ+ in the Azerbaijani segment of Facebook and Instagram. Focusing on public content published between January and July 2025, the research documents how hostility manifests, who amplifies it, and how platform governance failures shape the environment.

During the monitoring period, we collected 100 concrete examples of hate speech ranging from slurs and moral condemnation to explicit calls for violence. Based on this dataset, we grouped content into distinct categories of hate speech, analysed patterns of engagement, and visualised the findings through infographics. We also compiled a “top-10” list of the most widely circulated hateful posts and comment threads from Facebook and Instagram to illustrate how far and how fast such content travels.

The full report goes beyond isolated incidents. It shows how influencers, media pages, and semi-public figures actively shape hostile narratives, how engagement rewards toxicity, and how online hate feeds into offline danger.

Read the full report “Licence to Hate” to understand how the first half of 2025 unfolded for LGBTIQ+ users on Azerbaijani social media and why these digital dynamics matter far beyond the screen.